- j VW^ff 

& -0/ A' V:« .'life* W 

€$\<p V^V" v^*V V^.r 

^^P" 



*** ** Jr um % *™" 



*U • • * A 9> • • • 




••"|»HIIIMIIIIMIIIIIIIIII||||||||M|,||,,,,H|||||MIIHIIII|im 



I THE = 
1 1 1 1^1 1 f f r 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 r 1 1 1 1 1 f i r 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 iiNiiiifmiiiiiMiiiimHiiNiiimiiiiiiiiimiiiSiiii 

I TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL;! 

iiii|iiii!jfU!i.niiiiM 




THE FIRESIDE FRIEND PUB. CO. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

The Fireside Friend Publishing Company, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



~\A AKY years ago, the attention of the compiler of the 
following pages was first called to the subject by 
hearing a lecture delivered by a highly educated Cherokee 
Indian, on the manners and customs of the various 
Indian tribes of North America. During the course of his 
remarks, he stated that when he came to study the 
Hebrew language, he was astonished to find so much of 
his own language that was pure Hebrew. And after 
enumerating the various words of his own language that 
were Hebrew, he found them to exceed fifty. "And," said 
he, "we were taught this by our ancestors, and they 
received it from their Hebrew ancestors, the Ten Tribes." 



iv PREFACE. 

And furthermore, he stated that he was as firmly con- 
vinced that the Indian tribes of North America were 
descendents of the Ten Tribes of Israel, as he was of any 
other fact. This statement induced us to examine 
history on this question, and we have found many facts 
corroborating the testimony of the Red Man of the forest. 
Though differing from some other writers on this subject, 
we have the testimony of a number of the most eminent 
men of America to sustain our position. 

THE AUTHOR. 



ts 2 — '—^JoqA^ 



is a/ 



A Crucial Copper 276 

Ancient Antiquities 11 

Ancient Jewish History 17 

Ancient Works in Pickaway County, 

Ohio 307 

A Kelic 16 

Curiosities 306 

Customs in Missouri 302 

David Zeisberger — Indian Missions in 

Ohio .278 

Discoveries at Newark in 1875 246 

Discoveries in West Virginia, 1875 . . .252 



Fort Ancient. 



260 



General Character and Established 

Customs and Habits of the Indians. 91 
Gnadenhuetten Massacre 290 

Historical Sketches of Louisiana 222 

History 261 

Incidents 254 

Indian Traditions 79 

Inference # 205 



Language of the North American In- 
dian 64 

Late Discoveries 58 

Miscellaneous Facts 169 

Morality of the Indians 191 

Mound Builder's Works Near Newark, 

Ohio .231 

Mummies, Coins, Stones and Kelics. . . .257 

Our Aborigines 9 



Probable Nationality of the Mound 

Builders 263 

Pyramids 303 

Religious Rites and Ceremonies 137 

Separation of the Indian Women 203 

State of the Jews .' 24 

Testimony of Those Who Ha 1 an Op- 
portunity of Judging, &c 181 

The Lost Arts, by Wendell Phillips 309 

The North American Indian 8 

The Prehistoric Races 243 

Their Public Worship and Religious 

Opinions 151 

The Ten Tribes 7 



\ 



( 





The Ten Tribes. 




H E following is taken from the 
Apocrypha, II. Esdras XIII, 
40 — 45, to show when the Ten 
Tribes left the Eastern Country to 
come to a land not inhabited by 
man: "These are the ten tribes, 
which were carried away prisoners out 
of their own land in the time of Osea the 
king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assy- 
ria led away captive, and he carried them 
over the waters, and so came they into another 
land. 41. But they took counsel among them- 
selves, that they would leave the multitude of the 
heathen, and go forth into a further country, where 
never mankind dwelt. 45. For through that coun- 
try there was a great way to go, namely, of a year 
and a half: and the same region is called Arsareth." 
Now, what are we to learn from the foregoing his- 
tory? First, we are taught that they understood 
the geography of the country and the distance they 
must travel in order to get to this land where no man. 
dwelt; and second, that there was no country in the 
East but what was more or less inhabited by man, 
and consequently America was the only country at 
that time known that was not inhabited. 



The North American Indian, 




HE following is from J. J. Mombert's History 
of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, page 68,. 
^ being an extract from a letter written by 
William Penn to the Committee of the Free So- 
ciety of Traders, in London, England,"' 1683. He 
states of the origin of the North Americanjlndian: 
" I am ready to believe them of the Jewish race — 
I mean of the stock of the Ten Tribes — and that 
for the following reasons: First, they were to go 
to a land not planted or known, which, to'be sure, 
Asia and Africa were, if not Europe, and he that 
intended that extraordinary judgment upon them 
might make the passage not uneasy to them, as it is not impossible in 
itself, from the eastermost parts of Asia to the westermost parts of Ameri- 
ca. In the next place, I find them of the like countenance, and their 
children of so lively resemblance that a man would think himself in 
Duke's Place, or Berry Street, London, when he seeth them. But this is 
not all; they agree in wrights, they reckon by moons, they offer their 
first fruits, they have a kind of feast of tabernacles, they are said to lay- 
their altar upon twelve stones, their mourning a year, customs of women , 
with many other things that do not now occur. 11 







ANCIENT ISRAELITE RELIO 




||e V.JAMES S. MILL1GAN writes from Argyle, N. Y., May 
13, iS^^, to a friend in Alleghany, Pa.: "Having in my pos- 
session a very curious relic, or fac simile of a relic, of that 
2^^^^^ ancient nation, the Jews, I take the liberty of addressing 
e/$p\s you in reference to it, in order that I and others may have 
the benefit of your opinion concerning it. That to which I refer is the 
fac simile in block tin of a silver coin found last summer in Michigan, 
about twenty miles from Detroit, two feet under the surface of the earth 
The coin is about the size of an American half dollar, not so great in cir- 
cumference but thicker. On one side is represented a censer with smok- 
ing incense, with a Hebrew inscription, ''Jewish Shekel on the other, 
also, is a Hebrew inscription, " The Holy Jerusalem," with a representa- 
tion of an olive tree, or, perhaps, palm tree. The original piece found is 
in possession of Dr. Duffield, Detroit. Is it not more than possible that 
this shekel of Israel was lost by Indians, and is it not another evidence 
that they are descendents of the Ten Tribes?" 

Here follows the remarks of his friend: "The relic is plainly Israelitish. 
The fac simile represents accurately the silver shekel of Israel. It was 
worth fifty cents of our money. Our silver half dollar is nearly a half 
ounce avoirdupois. The Shekel of Israel was known in Persia. It is 
; mentioned in Xenphon's Anabassis. This relic having been discovered 



io 



OUR .ABORIGINES. 



in Michigan, (twenty miles west of Detroit,) two feet under ground", it 
must have been left there before the discovery of America by Columbus. "* 
Who could have left it there but one of the Ten Tribes? If that be; 
true, as Dr. Duffield supposes, it disposes of the theory of some learned! 
men respecting the Hebrew alphabet — that it is Babylonian, brought back 
at the return of the captives under Cyrus, and that the letters are not 
those given by God to Moses at Horeb. It is the theory, however, of 
most modern Hebrew critics, as may be seen in the grammar Gessenins, 
from whom Professor Stuart,|of Andover Seminary, derives it, and gives 
it in his Hebrew grammar. Those critics maintain that the ancient He- 
brew alphabet is now found in the Samaratan. I have long maintained! 
that this is a false theory. The Hebrew letters found engraven in the top* 
rock at Ticonderoga, the sheens found in Georgia and the inscriptions 
on the shekel, are evidences that those who were taken by Shalmanzer r 
in the reign of Hoshea, at least seven hundred and twenty-one years be- 
fore Christ, and, ofcourse, before the carrying into Babylon, before the: 
reign of Jechonias, used the present form of Hebrew letter. 

Rey. J. Dodds, pastor of a congregation in Western Pennsylvania, and 
who takes an interest in the Hebrew language, tells me that there are in- 
scriptions in the ruins of the city of Palenque, in Central America, that 
seems to confirm Dr. Boudinot's theory, taught in his "Star in the West." 

The compiler of this volume consulted a Jewish Priest relating to those 
Hebrew words on the coin described above, and he gave the translation^ 
as we have given it. 





EV. J. R.WILLSON, D.D., a learned Hebrew scholar,writing 
in 1853 on Hebrew antiquities, gives the following: "There 
are very learned works on Grecian and Latin antiquities. 
These are much used in schools. There are also very elabo- 
rate volumes on the antiquities of the Jews, such as 'Rouse's 
Archaslogia' and 'Lewis's Hebrew Antiquities.' These works 
have fallen into disuse for nearly one hundred and fifty years. They 
have all been intended to illustrate the ancient habits, manners and 
usages of the South of India after the secession of the Ten Tribes. There 
has been very little inquiry after the remnants of the Ten Tribes since 
they were carried away by Salmanasar, in the reign of Hezekiah, more 
than six hundred and fifty years before Christ. 

We have, however, great and precious promises to all the seed of 
Jacob, yet to be fulfilled. (Psalm CXLVII, 2.) 'He gathereth togeth- 
er the outcasts of Israel.' (Isaiah XI, 12.) 'And he shall set up an en- 
sign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather 
together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.' 
Here the Ten Tribes of outcasts are distinguished from the 'dispersed of 
Judah.' That promise has never been fulfilled. But where are they? 
That they will be found does not admit of any reasonable doubt. 

In this age, when men run to and fro, and knowledge of all kinds is 
increased, these long outcasts of Israel will no doubt be found. There 
have been various conjectures as to where they are. Some of them seem 



12 



ANCIENT ANTIQUITIES. 



probable, but none upon the whole very satisfactory. One theory of late 
has been held and brought before the public, accompanied with argu- 
ments which render it, as many think, almost certain. Dr. Elias Boudi- 
not, of New Jersey, the first President of the American Bible Society, 
published an octavo volume, which he called 1 The Star in the West.* 
The name was suggested to the Doctor by a learned work of a Christian 
traveller in the East, whose name was Buchanan He had published, 
some time before, a book called 'The Star in the East,' a very interesting 
work, in which he states that he found in the south of Asia numerous 
descendents of the Ten Tribes. The ' Star in the West' ought to be read 
by every friend of the Israel of God. The readers of your publication 
would be interested by a statement of a few arguments in support of Dr. 
Boudinot's theory: First — A Rabbi from beyond the Caspian sea wrote 
to one of his friends remaining in the land of Israel, that he and his breth- 
ren had determined to go in a body a journey of one year and six months, 
and go to a place where they never could be heard of again. His letter 
is found in the Apocrypha, which, though uninspired, is generally found 
to be good history.* The king of Assyria, in the sixth year of Hezekiah, 
carried away Israel beyond the Caspian sea. 'And the king of Assyria 
did carry away Israel unto Assyria and put them in Halah and Habor,by 
the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (II. Kings XLIII, 2.) 
The' river of the Medes is Gihon, which enters into the Caspian sea on 
south, through ancient Media. Peter the Great, of Russia, adopted the 
same policy with the Finlanders, when he conquered them, planting 
them in the eastern outskirts of his empire. Now those Hebrews could 
not go south, for Hindoostan was peopled by the descendents of Abra- 
ham many hundred years before, for they sent away the children of the 
concubines to the east country. Shinar was peopled bv the children of 
Keturah. f The whole valley of the Euphrates and Tigris was thickly 
settled by the Assyrians; ofcourse there was no other way for the colony 
of Hebrews than toward Behring's Strait. That journey would have re- 
quired one year and six months, for a large colony, their carriages, cattle 
and provisions, through an unsettled country. Behring's Straight is forty 



* See "The Life of Sir William," by Lord Teigumouth. 
t See II Esdrae XIII, 40. 



ANCIENT ANTIQUITIES. 



13 



miles, and is even now frozen over in winter, and much more would it be 
then. Second — A second argument that the Tartars are descendents of 
the Ten Tribes: Mr. Daschoff, the Russian Ambassador, told the writer, 
thirty-six years ago, that he knew that the Tartars were Hebrews. He 
said: ' My family came from Tartary to European Russia one hundred 
and fifty years ago. Our chiefs were called Knies. When I came to 
America and saw Indians, I asked how Tartars came here, for/ said he, 
* the Tartars in all their leading- features are Hebrews. 1 The names of 
the rivers, mountains and towns in Tartary being disguised, Hebrews 
bear testimony to Mr. DaschofF's testimony. Third — The names of the 
mountains, rivers and tribes of our Indians are also disguised. Hebrew 
Mount Elias is 17.900 feet high at the north end of the Rocky Mountains 
and in north latitude sixtv degrees. That mountain must have been nam- 
ed in remembrance of Elijah, upon Mount Carmel in the west of Pales- 
tine, a little south of where the Kishon falls into the Mediterranean. 
Charlevaux, the French Jesuit who traveled from Canad^l to Louisiana, 
about twenty years ago, did not go so far north; neither .'did Carver. If 
they had both gone so far, they would not, probably, have called a moun- 
tain by his name; but nothing could be more natural than that these exil- 
ed Hebrews should have called it a name which they almost venerated, 
in the time of Christ. When we come farther south, the names of rivers 
are more clearly Hebrew. 'Great garden' is derived from 'a God' and 
'gen garden;' 'Ohio' is 'Jehova' pronounced without the points; 'Acocao- 
oa Youghiogheny' is the same name; the old name was 'Ohiopoe,' which 
means 'Little Ohio.' The Pottowattamy Indians call the Mississippi 
'Mishapawaw,' which is plainly derived from 'Mesah' (Moses), and 'Pa- 
waw' (Father), which means 'Father Moses, and we call it the Father of 
Waters. 'Kanawha' is 'Guna Abba' (Father). The patience of the read- 
er would be exhausted should the writer attempt to identify the Hebrew 
names with the one-tenth of American rivers. The names of tribes and 
towns are as clearly of Hebrew origin. The 'Mandans' from 'man' and 
"'dan,' and means Dan. Other names of tribes are to the same effect. 
Fourth — From the literature of the Indian tribes,* (if it may be called by 
that name,) the writer has seen a paradigm of the Mohegan verb. 



* See notes to Boudinot's "Star in the West," which gives a vocabulary of some of the words. 



14 



ANCIENT ANTIQUITIES. 



The Rev. Wm. Smith, a Presbyterian minister among the Indians, who 
has finished a translation of the New Testament in the Mohegan language, 
told the writer that he had for years labored to make a paradigm of the 
Mohegan verb. At length it struck me that it was cast in the Hebrew 
mould, and I made this one, which I will show you. It was printed on a 
large sheet, and any Hebrew scholar would at once recognize the suffixes 
and affixes of the Hebrew Bible. At the time the writer heard this, Mr. 
Smith was in Albany, superintending the publication of the Mohegan 
Testament. Several years before that, the writer of this article had seen 
a grammar of the Chilian language, and the verb was cast in that Hebrew 
mould. No Hebrew scholar could doubt this. It may be said that Chili 
is South America. Very true, but let it be remembered on our side that 
Hebrew emigrants had been in America five hundred years before Christ, 
and ofcourse the Mexicans are descendents of the Hebrews, if it be true 
that the Chilians are. Judge Breckenridge, who was Secretary of the Le- 
gation to Mexico, told the writer that the language of the Mexican's was 
a very jingling language — a great many consonants and few vowels. In 
that it resembles the language of the Tartars. Their usages indicate the 
same thing. First — They have a long festival in spring, the time of year 
the Jews keep their passover. Second — Many of the Indians, especially 
those of Western Pennsylvania, seventy years ago did not eat of the sin- 
ew that shrank. Third — They make a tent and enter that tent to purify 
themselves.* Sixth — One tribe at least has a box in which is a copy of 
parchment which they keep most sacred. This the writer had from Mr. 
Shannon, a very respectable gentleman, who said that after great persua- 
sion they shewed it to him. It was written in large letters with blue ink. 
Mr. Shannon was not a Hebrew scholar, and did not know what language 
it was. Seventh — Inscriptions. (The writer will speak in the first per- 
son, as is customary now.) In going down lake Champlain, in Decem- 
ber, 1832, I was detained by an accident, which happened to the steam- 
boat at Lake Ticonderoga. There I discovered, near a small village, 
Hebrew letters on the rocks. At first I thought they were the marks of 
feet upon the rocks, which Mr. Morse speaks of in his Geography, but on 
reflection I saw that some were Hebrew sheens; they were large letters 

* See the narration of Colonel James Smith. 



ANCIENT ANTIQUITIES. 



1;> 



— from four to five inches long — and beautifully carved. They arc etl 
graved in hard trap rock, a quarter of an inch dee}) and a quarter of an 
inch wide in the thickest part and then in beautifully curved hair-lines. 
I found, also, gimel yod heth in its oldest form — vaw and taw. I did not 
c >unt them, but presume to say that there were more than a hundred, 
near the outlet of Lake George. I found an anchor with two flukes. I 
found but two words — shoo goo-goo — for family, (the family of the Shu- 
hires.) There are other inscriptions in Pennsylvania, on the rocks on the 
route of the canal, I have heard. 

"Now all these facts render it probable that our Indians are the outcasts, 
of Israel. It is hoped that our ministers in the West will enter into fur- 
ther investigation. J. R. W." 



[As the ministers have failed to make any further investigation of the- 
subject, the writer feels called upon to give the public all the information* 
he has collected on this subject during the past fifteen years.] 




|HE following is from Alexander" s Messenger, published many 
years ago, in Philadelphia, Pa: 

"A government officer stationed at Lake Superior, at an 
early day, before any white settlers had invaded that part of 
the country, after becoming acquainted with a number o r 
Indian tribes, found one tribe in possession of a copper tube 
tightly soldered; and when asked what it contained they said they were 
not able to tell, but they had received it from their ancestors a long time 
-ago. The officer finally prevailed upon them to let him open the article, 
and when he did so he found it filled with parchment, with inscriptions 
that he could not read, but by sending the parchment to Washingtou 
City, where it was examined by competent Hebrew scholars; it was de 
dared to be part of the five books of Moses." 

Here we have another link in the chain, proving that the Hebrews 
were here many years before the white man came to this continent, and 
that the present North American Indians are their descendents. 




OWEVER despised the Hebrews were among the Greeks. 
Romans and others of their neighbors, during the existence 
of their civil government, and by all the nations of the earth 
ever since, there can be no doubt now, that they have been 




and still are the most remarkable people that have existed 



since the first century after the flood.* 
It does appear from their history, and from the Holy Scriptures, that 
the great Governor of the Universe, in his infinite wisdom and mercy to 
our fallen race, did select this nation, from all the nations of the earth, as 
his peculiar people, not only to hand down to mankind at large, the great 
doctrine of the unity of his divine nature, with the principles of the wor- 
ship due to him by intelligent people — the universal depravity of man by 
the fall of Adam, with the blessed means of his restoration to the favor of 
God, by the shedding of blood, without which there could be no forgive- 
ness of sin. But that also through them the means and manner of the 
atonement of sin by the promised Messiah, who was to be sent into our 
world in the fullness of time^for this invaluable purpose, and who was to> 
be a divine person and literally become the desire of all nations, should 
be propagated and made known to all mankind, preparatory to his coming 
in the flesh. And that afterwards, this people should be supported and 
proved in all ages of the world, by means of their miraculous preservation 
against all the experience of other nations. For while dispersed through . 





* We will Rive large extracts from a work published in the early part of this century by Dr. Ulias IT II llilfinafl . 



18 



ANCIENT JEWISH HISTORY. 



the world without a spot of land they could properly call their own, and 
despised and persecuted in every part of it, yet they have continued a 
separate people, known by their countenances, while their enemies and 
conquerors have wasted away, and are, as it were, lost from the earth, in 
fulfillment of the declarations of their prophets, inspired by God, to the 
astonishment of all nations. 

This people was also a living example to the world of the dealings of 
Divine Providence towards the workmanship of His hands, by rewarding 
their obedience in a very extraordinary manner, and punishing their 
wilful transgressions in a most exemplary manner. 

Though he often declared them his peculiar — his chosen — his elect peo- 
ple — nay that he esteemed them as the apple of his eye, for the sake of his 
servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their progenitors, yet he has fully 
•.shown to the world, that however dear a people might be to him as their 
^governor and king, or by adoption, that no external situation or special 
'circumstances would ever lead him to countenance sin, or leave it unpun- 
ished, without a suitable atonement and deep repentance. 

They also answered, but in a stronger manner, the use of hieroglyphics, 
■ and figures, as a universal language, to instruct all mankind in the mind 
■and will of God, before letters were in general use, and had this knowl- 
edge been properly improved, would have been more effectual, than 
instruction by word of mouth or personal address. 

God has acknowledged them by express revelation — by prophecies, 
forewarning them of what should befall them in the world, accordingly 
;as they kept his commandments, or were disobedient to them, until their 
final restoration to the promised land. In short, their long dispersed 
■state, with their severe persecutions, and still continuing a separate peo- 
ple among all nations, are standing, unanswerable and a complete fulfil- 
ment of the many prophecies concerning them, some thousands of years 
past. 

Another essential purpose, in the course of God's providence with his 
people is also to be produced. The restoration of this suffering and des- 
pised nation to their ancient city and their former standing in the favor 
of God, with a great increase of glory and happiness, are expressly fore- 
t&old by Christ, his prophets and apostles, as immediately preceding the 



ANCIENT JEWISH HISTORY. 



19 



second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to this our earth, 
with his saints and angels, in his own glory as mediator, and the glory of 
the father, or of his divine nature, plainly distinguished from that humility 
and abasement attending his first coming in the flesh. Of course, when- 
q\ er this restoration shall come to pass, it will be so convincing and con- 
\ icting a testimony of the truth and certainty of the whole plan and 
predictions of the sacred record, as powerfully to affect all the 
nations of the earth, and bring them to an acknowledgment of the true 
( r >d, even our Lord Jesus the Christ. 

For, as Bishop Warburton justly asks, "If the explanation of the econ- 
omy of grace, in which is contained the system of prophecy; that is, the 
connection and dependence of the church of God, of no use? Surely of 
the greatest, and I am confident nothing but the light which will arise 
from thence, will support Christianity under its present circumstances. 
But the contending for single prophecies only, by one who thinks they 
rc J ate to Christ in a secondory sense, only, and who appears to have no 
high opinion of secondary senses, look very suspicious." 

Had all the great facts of revelation happened several thousand years 
ago, and the proof of their reality been ever so conclusive at the time, and 
nothing more done, but barely to hand them down to posterity as then 
•delivered in the testimony for their support at a given period from their 
fulfillment, would have lost all its weight; and the world might justly 
have been excused for doubting of their credulity. But God, in His great 
mercy has left the children of men without excuse; because he has so or- 
dered it, in his infinite wisdom, that the farther we record from the facts, 
the more do the evidences increase upon us. And this existance of the 
Jews, as a separate people, under all their afflictions and distresses, and 
that scattered among almost every nation on earth, is not among the least 
conclusive; but is like the manna, kept in the ark in a state of purity, 
which was undeniable evidence of the facts related in their history to the 
succeeding generations, while the temple lasted. So that now, no rea- 
sonable man of common abilities, who studies that history, and their 
present circumstances in the world, with impartiality, care and close atten- 
tion, attended by a*real desire to know the truth, can long doubt the 
divinity of the sacred volume. 



20 ANCIENT JEWISH HISTORY. 

To investigate then the present state and circumstances of this extraor- 
dinary people — to examine into their general history, in as concise a man- 
ner as may answer our general plan — and to inquire after the ten tribes, 
which formerly constituted the kingdom of Israel, that now appear to be 
lost from the earth, must be an undertaking (however difficult and un- 
promising) worthy the time and labor, which may be necessarily expended 
therein. 

The writer of these pages must acknowledge himself unequal to the 
task; but having been for years, endeavoring, but in vain, to urge more 
able hands to turn their attention to this important subject, he has, at last, 
determined to attempt it, under all his difficulties and deficiencies, on the 
principle that he may possibly, by drawing the outlines, call the aid of 
vsome learned and more able pen into the service, being, in his opinion, 
of the utmost consequence to the present generation in particular, as that 
era m whi'ch the latter times, the last times of the scriptures, or the end of 
the Roman government, seem to be hastening with rapid strides. 

The subject receives great additional importance from its prophetic 
connection, as before mentioned, with the second advent of the glorified 
Messiah, as Son of God, to this our world, in fulfillment of his own gra- 
cious promises in his holy word; the signs of approach of which he has 
expressly commanded us to watch, lest when he comes, as he will, in as 
unexpected a manner as a thief at night, we may be found sleeping on 
our post with the foolish virgins, without oil in our lamps. 

This subject has occupied the attention of the writer, at times, for more 
than forty years. He was led to the consideration of it, in the first in- 
stance, by a conversation with a very worthy and reverend clergyman of 
his acquaintance, who, having an independent fortune, undertook a jour- 
ney (in company with a brother clergyman, who was desirous of attend- 
ing him,) into the wilderness between the Alleghany and Mississippi 
rivers, some time in or about the years 1765 or 6, before the white people 
had settled beyond the Laurel Mountains. His desire was to meet with 
native Indians, who had never seen a white man, that he might satisfy 
his curiosity by knowing from the best source, what traditions the Indians 
yet preserved relative to their own history and origin. This, these gen- 
tlemen accomplished with great danger, risk ana fatigue. On their re- 



EARLY JEWISH HISTORY. >\ 
turn one of them related to the writer the information the} had obtained, 

what the\ saw and what they heard. 

This raised in the writer's mind such an idea of some- former connec- 
tion between these aborigines of our land, and the Jewish nation, as 
greatly to increase a desire for further information on so interesting and 
curious a subject. 

Soon atter, reading( quite accidentally )the 13th chapter of the 2ndApoch- 
ryphal book of Esdras, supposed to have been written about the year 100. 
of the Christian era, his ardor to know more of, and seek further into 
the circumstances of these lost tribes, was in no wise diminished. He 
has not ceased since, to improve every opportunity afforded him, by per- 
sonal interview with Indians — reading the best histories relating to them, 
and carefully examining our public agents residing among them, as to 
facts reported in the several histories, without letting them know his 
object, so as not only to gratify his curiosity, by obtaining all the knowl- 
edge relating to them in his power, but also to guard against misrepre- 
sentation as to any account he might hereafter be tempted to give of them. 
His design at present is, if by the blessing of Almighty God his life, now 
far advanced, should be spared a little longer, to give some brief sketches 
of what he has learned, in this important inquiry, lest the facts he has col- 
lected be entirely lost, as he feels himself culpable for putting off this 
business to so advanced a period of life, as to leave him small hopes of 
accomplishing his intentions. 

He does not mean to attempt to solve all the difficulties, or answer all 
the objections that may very probably attend this investigation. It must 
be obvious to every attentive reader, who considers the length of time 
since the first dispersion of the Ten Tribes of Israel — the wandering and 
destitute state of the Indian nations — their entire separation from all civil- 
ized society — their total want of the knowledge of letters or of writing — 
the strange inattention of most of the Europeans, who first settled among 
them, to record facts relating to them, and the falsehood and deception of 
many of the few who did attempt it — the difficulties attending the obtain- 
ing a critical knowledge of their language, customs and traditions, arising 
from a prudent, though a violent jealousy and fear of the white people, 
from whom they have received little else but irreparable injuries; wanton 

B v 



22 



EARLY JEWISH HISTORY. 



destruction and extreme sufferings. It must be allowed that under such 
untoward circumstances, many unsurmountable difficulties must arise, 
that cannot be avoided. 

In the prosecution of this compilation, the writer will avail himself of 
the best accounts given by the Spanish writers he can meet with — the 
histories written by our own people who first visited this land, or have 
since made themselves acquainted with the native inhabitants, arid 
recorded anything relative to their languages, customs, manners and hab- 
its, such as Colden, Adair, Brainerd, Edwards, jun. on the language of 
the Mohegans — also of the information received from the Rev. Dr. 
Beatty, Bartram, and others, of their personal observations, while with 
the Indians. 

The writer is aware that Sir William Jones, whose character stands so 
high in the literary world, has endeavored to show that he has discovered 
the tribes of Israel in the Afghans of the eastern world, and he produces 
the account given by Esdras in proof of it — and although the writer 
would pay the utmost respect to the learning and judgment of that excel- 
lent man, and would not dispute the Afghans being of Jewish descent; 
yet Sir William himself, in his abridgement of Persian work, entitled The 
Secrets of the Afghans, transmitted to him by Mr. Vansittart, informs us, 
that this people, in relating their own story, profess to be descended 
from king Saul. And they say that Afghan lived in the time of David 
and Solomon, and finally retreated to the mountains, where his descend- 
ants became independent, and exterminated the infidels, meaning the 
heathen. Now, in the first place, Saul was not an Israelite, but the son 
of Kish, a Benjamite, and therefore many will be found in the East; but 
not of the tribes 1 of Israel.* Secondly. — If we look carefully into the 
account given by Esdras (and Sir William has given authenticity to his 
account) we find that the Ten Tribes he speaks of, were carried away 
by Salamanazar, and it is agreed on all hands, that he sent them 
into the countries near the Euxine sea. And Esdras says they deter- 
mined to go to a place where they might keep their laws and remain 
undisturbed by the heathen; but if they had gone eastward, they would 
have been in the midst of them. Thirdly. — They traveled a great way 

* Vid. I. Samuel IX, 1-2. 



EARLY JEWISH HISTORY 



to an uninhabited country, in which mankind never yet dwelt, and passed 
a great water, but the Eastern country, even in that early d;iy, was well 
inhabited. These facts do not agree with the accounts ^iven by the 
Afghans, who, from their own statement, belong to another tribe and 
lived in Persia, from whence they can return to Jerusalem without pass- 
ing by sea or from the coasts of the earth. 





DNE would imagine, from reasoning on the importance of 
this nation to the world at large — from the many clear 
and precise histories of them from the time of Abraham, 
their great progenitor, and from the many great and glo- 
rious promises made to them and their posterity by a 
God of truth and faithfulness, on condition of strict obedi- 
ence to His laws as contained in the Divine Scriptures, that every person 
of leisure and observation would wish to become acquainted with the 
minute circumstances attending upon them from age to age. But such 
is the nature of man — such his indolence and inattention to things, how- 
ever important, that relate to distant objects and not present enjoyments, 
that judging from actual experience, the state of this people and their 
hastening restoration to their beloved city, and to more than former cel- 
ebrity and happiness, engages but (comparatively) few, even of those 
whose constant business in propagating the gospel ought to have led 
them, with peculiar energy, to have made them their diligent study. 

Indeed, the delays the writer himself has made in this business, under 
a full conviction of the necessity of it, is pretty good evidence of the 
tendency of the human heart to avoid active usefulness. It is well 
known to all historians and readers of the Old Testament, that God 
brought this nation of the Jews from the land of Egypt in a miraculous 
manner, with many signs and wonders, through a barren and desolate 
wilderness, in the space of forty years. That He went before them in a 



STATE OF THE JEWS '>5 

pillar of cloud by day and of lire by night. That He gave them laws, 
written by His own band, and promised them glorious things in ca-ie 
of obedience; but pronounced the most awful threatenings of misery and 
destruction incase of disobedience and forsaking His laws. That he 
became their political king and governor by express personal consent 
and mutual compact, in a different sense from that in which he stood to 
the rest of mankind, by which they were put under a complete theoc- 
racy. This continued till Shiloh came, according to the prophetic 
declaration, when the government of the universal church of both Jews 
and Gentiles descended upon him. 

It may be said, that the Jews were long governed by judges and kings 
after their possession of Canaan. But these were not of their 
appointment, but of the appointment of God under him, as 
his substitutes or vicegerents. — See II. Cor. IV, S: "Blessed be 
the Lord thy God, who delighted in thee, to set thee on His throne 
to be king for the Lord thy God."— I. Sam. VIII, 7: "And the Lord 
said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that 
they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee; but they have 
rejected me, that I should not reign over them." Also, Chron. VIII, 
8: "Now ye think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord, in the hands 
of the sons of David." Yet such was their constitutional obstinacy and 
hardness of heart, that after experiencing the most unbounded favors 
from God, by the fullest and most miraculous protection and signal inter- 
positions in their favor, by driving out the Canaanites before them and 
placing them in the promised land, which is described as flowing with 
milk and honey, they continually broke their solemn covenant and oppos- 
ed the express and positive commands of God, given and en- 
forced in all the majesty of Jehova, through the instrumentality of Moses 
and Aaron. Moses, though the meekest man on earth, became wearied 
out by their perverseness and rebellion. In the words of an excellent 
writer:* "There*is nothing deserves more particular attention than the 
spirit and behavior of the Israelites in the wilderness. A very remark- 
able instance of the wretched effects of servitude upon the human soul. 
They had been slaves to the Egyptians for about 140 years; their spirits 



♦Taylor's scheme, Watsons Col. 1 Vol. 111. 



26 



STATE OE THE JEWS. 



were debased, their judgments weak; their sense of God and religion 
very low; they were defective in attention, gratitude and generosity; full 
of distrust-and uneasy suspicions; complaining and murmuring under the 
most astonishing displays of Divine power and goodness, as if still under 
the frowns and scourges of their unjust task-masters; could scarce raise 
their thoughts to prospects the most pleasing and joyous. They knew 
not how to value the blessings of liberty — of a taste so mean and illiberal 
that the flesh and fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, 
garlic, and such good things of Egypt, weighed more with them, than 
the bread from heaven, (Numb. IX, 4 — 6.) And all the Divine assurances 
and demonstrations that they should be raised to the noblest privileges, 
the highest honors and felicity, as a peculiar treasure to God above all 
people in the world. In short nothing would do. The ill qualities of 
slavery were ingrained in their hearts — a grovelling, thoughtless, sturdy, 
dastardly spirit, fatigued the Divine patience, counteracted "all H's wise 
and beneficent measures; they could not be worked up to that sense of 
God; that esteem of His highest favors; that gratitude and generous duti- 
fulness; that magnanimity of spirit which were necessary to their 
conquering and enjoying the promised land; and therefore the wisdom of 
God, determined that they should not attempt the possession of it, till 
that generation of slaves, namely, all above 20 years of age, were dead 
and buried. However, this did not lie out of the Divine plan. It served a 
great purpose, namely, to warn that, and all other ages of the church, 
both Jewish and Christian, that if they despised and abused the goodness 
of God,. and the noble privileges and prospects they enjoy, they shall 'for- 
feit the benefit of them. And the apostle applieth it to this very impor- 
tant use, with great force and propriety, in his epistle to the Hebrews." 
— II, 15 to the end, and IV, 1 — 12. 

Thus it was that Moses being thoroughly acquainted with their unto- 
ward dispositions, and tendency to revolt to the wicked and ridiculous 
inventions of the nations around them, and inspired* with a spirit of 
prophecy, he in very sublime language, warned them of their danger, 
plainly telling them if they would obey the voice of the Lord their God 
indeed and keep His covenant, then they should be a peculiar treasure 
to Him above all people, for that the whole earth was His. And that 



STATK OF TIIK JKWS. 



>7 



although God lias thus kindly chosen them as I lis own people, \ el their 
continuing to enjoy His protection and favor, depended on their obedience 
to the laws He had given them. And after recapitulation the many spe- 
cial and unheard of mercies and extraordinary dealings of the Lord God 
of their fathers toward them from the beginning, and then giving them 
many excellent rules for their conduct He proceeded: ' Take heed unto 
yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He 
made w ith you, or the likeness ot anything which the Lord thy God hath 
forbidden thee. For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous 
God. When thou shalt beget children and children's children, and shalt 
have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves and make a 
graven image, or the likeness of anything, and shalt do evil in the sight 
of the Lord thy God, to provoke Him to anger; I call heaven and earth 
to witness against you this day, that you shall soon perish from off the 
land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your 
days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. And the Lord God shall 
scatter you among the nations; and ye shall be left few in number 
among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you. And ye shall serve 
other gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see 
nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But if from the?ice, thou shalt seek the Lord 
thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seekest Him with all thy heart and 
with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are 
come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, 
and shall be obedient to His voice; for the Lord thy God is a merciful 
God, He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the cove- 
nant of thy fathers, which He swear unto them." Deut. IV, 23 — 32. And 
Moses, after giving them a most excellent system of laws (as he has re- 
ceived them from God) in the 26th chap., 30th verse, enumerates a num- 
ber of extraordinary blessings that God would confer on them, in case 
of their hearkening diligently to the voice of the Lord their God, to ob- 
serve and do all His commandments, and then passes the awful sentence 
upon them, in case "it should come to pass, that they would not hearken 
to the voice of the Lord their God," that the extraordinary and dreadful 
curses, mentioned in verses 4c; to 66, which recapitulates, should 
come upon them, and then concludes in the 29th chap., 10th verse: "Ye 



28 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



stand this day, all of you before the Lord your God — -your captains of 
your tribes, yottr elders and your officers, with all the men of Israel, that 
thou shalt enter into covenant which the Lord thy God maketh with thee 
this day, that He may establish thee this day for a people unto Himself, 
and that He may be unto thee a God, as He hath said unto thee, and as He 
has sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Neither 
with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; but with him who 
standeth here with thee this day, before the Lord thv God, and also with 
him who is not here with us this day. Lest there should be with you 
man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day, 
from the Lord your God to go and serve the gods of the nations; lest 
there should be among you a root that beareth gall and worm-wood, and 
it come to pass when he heareth the words of this curse and he bless 
himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace though I walk in the stub- 
bornness* of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst; the Lord will not 
spare him; but the anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall smote against 
that man, and all the curses written in this book shall lie upon him, and 
the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. And the Lord shall 
separate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of Israel according to 
all the curses of the covenant that are written in the book of the 
law. And it shall come to pass that when all these things are 
come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before 
thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither 
the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return to the Lord thy 
God, and shalt obey His voice according to all that I command thee this 
day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart and with all thy soul; 
that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity and have compassion 
on thee, and, will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the 
Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven unto the 
utmost parts of the heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather 
thee, and from thence will he fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will 
bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt 
possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. 
And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy 

* Am in the margin of the Bihle. 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 29 

seed, to the Lord thy God with thine heart and with all thy soul, that 
von mavest live. And the Lord thy God will put all these curses on thine 
enemies, and on them who hate thee, who persecute thee. And then 
shalt return and obey the voice of the Lord to do all his commandments, 
which I command thee this day. And the Lord thy God will make thee 
plenteous in every work of thine hand; in the fruit of thy body, and in the 
fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land,*for good; for the Lord will 
again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers. If thou 
shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his command- 
ments and his statutes which are written in the book of the law; and if 
thou turn to the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul." 
— But these promises, and particularly that of being received by and 
placed under the particular and visible protection and government of" 
Almighty God, necessarily required their separation from the nations 
round about them, who were one and all sunk in the most stupid idolatry. 
To increase the obligations of this people to God, He had actually conde- 
scended (as before observed) to become their king and head, and prom- 
ised to attend them through the wilderness, during all their travels, as a 
pillar of cloud by clay, and a pillar of fire by night. Their government 
thus became a complete theocracy, both in their civil and ecclesiastical 
establishments. So that afterwards, when they had Moses and Aaron, 
judges or kings for their immediate rulers, they were but inferior magis- 
trates in their government, appointed by and under him as their sovereign.. 

They were necessarily and expressly to be separated from all the peo- 
ple of the earth, as a nation; by which the nature of their political and 
religious institutions, thus united, was made known to the world at large, 
and by the exclusive nature of their principles and practices, however ob- 
noxious and offensive to other nations, who universally held in an inter- 
communion of gods and Divine worship; yet their attention was thereby 
strongly drawn to consider them as the peculiar characteristic complexion 
of the Jewish government. Thus Moses understood it when he said to 
God: "For wherein shall it be known here, that land the people have 
found grace in Thy sight? Is it not that Thou goest with us? So s lvdl 
we be separated. I and Thy people, from all the people that are on the- 
face of the earth." 



30 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



After the death of Moses, and Joshua his successor, and the congrega- 
tion of the Jews having partially enjoyed the land in tolerable peace and 
quietness, the succeeding generation with their kings and princes, forgot 
the covenant of the Lord their God, agreeably to the prediction of Moses, 
and went after the inventions of neighboring nations. Yet God kindly sent 
His prophets from time to time, to refresh their memory and to warn 
them of their danger, in case they persisted in their rebellion, and did not 
repent and return to the Lord their God, with all their heart and with all 
their soul, but continued in their disobedience. About 700 years before 
the Christian era, near the time of the invasion of Salmanazar, king of 
Assyria, Isaiah, the prophet of God, was sent to them with this solemn 
and awful message: "The Lord sent a word unto Jacob, and it has light- 
ed up Israel, and all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhab- 
itants of Samaria, who say in the pride and stoutness of their heart, the 
bricks are fallen down; but we will build with hewn stones. The syca- 
more trees are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. There- 
fore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join 
his enemies together; the Syrians before and the Philistines behind, and 
they shall devour Israel with open mouth; for all this his anger is not 
turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For the people turneth 
not unto him who smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts. 
Therefore the Lord will cut off from Irsael, head and tail, branch and 
rush, in one day. The ancient and honorable, he is the head, and the 
prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail. For the leaders of this people 
make them to err, and they who are led of them are destroyed. There- 
fore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have 
mercy on their fatherless and widows. For every one is an hypocrite 
•and an evil doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger 
is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For wickedness 
burnetii as the fire; it shall devour the briars and the thorns, and shall 
kindle in the thickest of the forest; and they shall mount up, like the lift- 
ing up of the smoke. Through the wrath of the Lord of Hosts is the, 
land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire; no man shall 
-spare his brother. Isaiah IX, 8 — 19. 

"O Assyrian! the rod of mine anger; and the staff of their hand is mine 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



indignation. I w ill send him ( the* Assyrian) againsl an hypocritical na- 
tion, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to 

take the spoil and to take the prey, ami to tread thorn down like the mire 
of the street." Isa. X, 5 — 6. 

After grievous sufferings as above descrfbed, God in His great mercy, 
showed that He would still be gracious to them in their distress and ap- 
parent abandonment, in this consolatory language: "And it shall come to 
pass in that day (the latter day) that Jehova shall again, the second time, 
put forth His hand to recover the remnant of His people who remaineth 
from Assyria, and from Egypt, and Pathros,* and from Cush.f and from 
Elam,| and from Shinar,§and from Hamah,|| and from the western regions, 
(as it should have been translated, instead of the island of the sea.^j") 
Isaiah XI. 11 — 15, Lowth's translation. And he shall lift up a signal to 
the nations, and shall gather the outcasts of Israel, and the dispersed of 
Judah shall be called from the four extremities of the earth. And the 
jealousy of Ephraim shall cease, and the enmity of Judah shall bemo more; 
Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not be at enmity 
with Ephraim. But they shall invade the borders of the Philistines, 
westward; they shall spoil the children of the East together. They shall 
lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Amnion shall 
obey them. And "Jehova shall smite with a drought the tongue of the 
Egyptian sea; and He shall shake His hand over the river with his vehe- 
ment wind, and he shall strike ic into seven streams, and make them 
pass over it. dry shod, and there shall (also) be a highway, for the rem- 
nant of his people; which shall remain from Assyria, as it was unto Israel, 
in the day when he came up from the land of Egypt. " 

By this representation it plainly appears — 

1st. That the people of the Jews, however scattered and lost on the 
face of the earth, are in the latter day to be recovered by the mighty 
power of God. and restored to their beloved city, Jerusalem in the land of 
Palestine. 

*A country bordering on Egypt. 

tOr Arabia. 

{Meaning Persia. 

\ Where Babylon formerly stood. 

Jin Assyria, to the east of the mountains forming the boundaries of Medio. 
ILowth. 



32 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



2d. That a clear distinction is made between the tribes of Judah, in 
which Benjamin is included, and the Ten Tribes of Ierael, agreeably to 
their particular states. The first is described as dispersed among the na- 
tions in the four quarters of the world — The second as outcasts from the 
nations of the earth. 

3d. Thus they shall pass through a long and dreary wilderness from 
the North country, and finally enter into Assyria, (it may possibly be) by 
the way of some narrow strait, where they will meet together in a body 
and proceed together to Jerusalem. 

4th. That this restoration is said to be accomplished a second time. 
The first was from Egypt — the second is to be similar to it, in several of 
its remarkable circumstances. 

5th. The places from whence they are to come are specially desig- 
nated. They are to come first from Assyria and Egypt, where it is well 
known, many of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were carried captive, 
and are now to be found in considerable numbers, and from Pathros bor- 
dering on Egypt — and from Cush and from Elam, different parts of 
Persia, where the present Jews are undoubtedly of the same tribes, and 
perhaps mixed with a few of the ten tribes who remained in Jerusalem 
and were carried away by Nebuchadnezzar. And from Shinar still more 
east and where some of the same tribes are now found. And from Ha- 
mah near the Caspian sea, where some of the Ten Tribes have remained 
ever since the time of Salmanazar; and from the Western regions.* 

9th. Thus we have the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin well known 
to be dispersed through the three quarters of the world — But as to the 
majority of the Ten Tribes, although every believer in Divine revelation has 
no doubt of their being perserved by the sovereign power of God in 
some unknown region; yet as the whole globe has been traversed by one 
adventurer or another, it is a little astonishing that they have not been 
discovered. By the representation above, it is clear that we mnstlook for 
them, and they will undoubtedly at last be found in the Western regions 
or some place answering this description as the place of their banish- 
ment. 

God proceeds in His encouraging prospects, in language of the greatest 

*See Lowth. 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



affection. "But now saitb the Lord, who created thee O Jacob, and Jli 

who formed thee 0 Israel. Fear not lor I have redeemed thee: I have 
called thee by thy name. When thou passes! through the waters, 1 will 
be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when 
thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the 
flame kindle upon thee. For 1 am the Lord thy God, the holy one of 
Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for 
thee. Since thou was precious in my sight,thou hast been honorable, and 
1 have loved thee, therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy 
life. Fear not, for I am with thee, I will bring thy seed from the East 
and gather thee from the West; I will say to the North give up, and to the 
South keep not back; bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from 
the ends of the earth." Isaiah XLIII, i — 9. 

Again: "Thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable time I have heard thee, 
and in a day of salvation helped thee, and I will preserve thee, and give 
thee for a covenant of the people to establish the earth, to cause them to 
inherit the desolate heritages. That thou mayest say to the prisoners go 
forth, to them who are in darkness, show yourselves.* They shall feed 
in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. They shall not 
hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat or the sun smite them; for He 
who shall have mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of 
water shall He guide them. And I will make all my mountains a way, 
and my highways shall be exalted. Behold these shall come from afar; 
and lo, these from the North and from the West; and those from the land 
of Sinim." Isaiah XLIX, 8 — 13. Here again they are described as passing 
mountains from far, or a great distance, and that from the North and West 
or North- West; and others are to come from the land of Sinim, or the 
Eastern country. "Moreover, thou son of man, take thee a stick and 
write upon it, for Judah and for the children of Israel his companions. 
And then another stick, and write upon it, for Joseph, the stick of 
Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions." Ezekiel 
XXXVII, 16. 

It appears by this chapter, that there are some few of the Israelite- still 

♦Mr. Fiiber translates this "to them who are in darkness," "Be ye discovered. '* This is peculiarly appli- 
cable to the present state of the Israelites as we hereinafter suppose them to he. 



34 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



with Judah; but all are again to become one people at a future day. It 
also appears, that the body of the house of Israel are remote from Judah, 
and are to be brought from distant countries to Jerusalem, where they are 
to become one nation again. 

Their approach to their own land, is so joyous an event, that Isaiah 
breaks forth in language of exultation. "Sing O heavens! and be jovful 

0 earth, and break forth into singing O mountains, for the Lord hath 
comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His afflicted." 

"Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, behold! I will save my people from the 
East country (the tribes of Judah and Benjamin) and from the west 
country (the Ten Tribes;) and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in 
the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people and I will be their 
God in truth and righteousness." Zach. VIII 7 — 8. Ezekiel also refers 
to the same event: "As I live saith the Lord, with a mighty hand and a 
stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out will I rule over you. And 

1 will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the 
countries where ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretch- 
ed out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring- you into the 
wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you, face to face, 
like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, 
so will I plead with you saith the Lord. And I will cause you to pass 
under the rod; and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; and I 
will purge out from among you the rebels and them who transgress 
against me. I will bring them forth out of the country where they 
sojourned, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel, and ye shall 
know that I am the Lord." Ezekiel XX, 35 — 43. 

Here we see that they are distinguished again, by those of the East 
country and those of the West country, and that they are finally to be 
united under one government again, when they shall be restored to Jeru- 
salem, yet they must suffer greatly by the way, for their sins and contin- 
ued obstinacy, which would require God's fury to be poured out upon 
them, for the reluctance with which they will attempt the journey back 
to Jerusalem. In short their restoration to the city of God, will in many 
things be similar to their exodus from Egypt to Canaan. They will be 
obstinate and perverse in their opposition to the journey; and on the way 



STATE OF THE JKYVS. 



w ill show mqch of the same spirit as their fathers did in the w ilderness, 
as they will be attached to the land of their banishment, as their fathers 
were to tliat of Kgypt. Main' of them will have a wilderness to pass 
through, as Israel of old had. God also w ill have a controversy with 
them by the w ay, and will destroy many of them, so that they shall nev- 
er see Jerusalem, the beloved city. But those who hold out to the end, 
in obedience to the heavenly call and submission to the Divine will, shall 
be accepted, and these shall sincerely repent of their past transgressions. 
Again: "I w ill accept you >vith your sweet savor, when I bring you out 
from the people, and gather you out of the countries where you have 
been scattered, and I will be sanctified in you before the heathen. And 
ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the land of 
Israel, into the country, for the which I lifted up my hand, to give it to 
your fathers. And there shall ye .remember your ways, and all your do- 
ings wherein you have been defiled, and ye shall loathe yourselves 
in your own sight for all the evils you have committed." Bishop 
Warburton's observations on this passage are worthy of notice. He says: 
"It is here we see denounced, that the extraordinary providence under 
which the Israelites had always been preserved, should be withdrawn, 
or, in the Scripture phrase, that God would be enquired of bv them. 
That they should remain in the condition of their fathers in the wilder- 
ness, when the extraordinary providence of God, for their signal disobe- 
dience, was, for some time, suspended. And yet that though they strove 
to disperse themselves among the people round about, and projected in 
their minds to be as the heathen and the families of the countries, to 
serve wood and stone, they should still be under the government of a 
theocracy, w hich when administered with an extraordinary providence,, 
the blessing naturally attendant upon it, was, and justly, called the roll 
and bond of the covenant." 

Every reader, who takes the Scriptures for his rule of conduct, must 
believe that these people of God arc yet in being in our world, however 
unknown at present to the nations — and as God once had seven thousand 
men, who had not bowed the knee to Baal in the days of Elijah, when 
he thought that he was the only servant of God, left in Israel, so God has 
preserved a majority of His people of Israel in some unknown part of the 



36 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



world, for the advancement of His own glory. And we plainly see, in 
the quotation above, that they are distinguished again, by those of the 
East country, and those of the West country, and that though they were 
finally to be united into one government, when they should be restored 
to Jerusalem, yet they must suffer greatly by the way, for their sins and 
continued obstinate provocations of the Divine Majesty, who was their 
king and governor, which would require His fury to be poured out upon 
them and particularly for the reluctance with which they should be pre- 
vailed on to attempt a return to Jerusalem, when God should set up His 
standard to the nations for that purpose. In short, their sufferings 
and perverse conduct on their exodus from Egypt to the land of 
Canaan, seems to be a type of their final return to Jerusalem. They will 
be obstinate and perverse in their setting off and on their way, as they 
will be greatly attached to the land of their banishment — They, at least a 
great part of them, will have a wilderness to pass through, as their fath 
ers had. God will have a controversy with them by the way, on account 
of their unbelief and the customs and habits indulged among them con- 
trary to the Divine commandments, as he had with their fathers, and will 
destroy them in like manner, so that they shall never arrive at their be- 
loved city, as was done to the rebels in the camp of Moses and Joshua. 
They are to pass through waters and rivers and be baptized therein as 
their fathers were in the Red sea, and will receive the same Divine pro- 
tection. Those who shall hold out to the end in a line of obedience and 
submission and obedience to the Divine will, shall be accepted and safely 
returned to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their 
seed after them, where they shall sincerely repent and mourn for all their 
former transgressions.* 

We are left to the predictions and encouraging declarations of one or 
two prophets of God; but Ezekiel also confirms and continues the Divine 
interference in their favor, for he says; "Thus saith the Lord, behold! I 
will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be 
gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own 
land; and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of 
Israel; arid one king shall be king to them all, and they shall no more be 

*Some of them are to be carried in ships, by seafaring nations, as a present to the Lord of Jerusalem. 



statu of Tin-: jews. 



two nations, neither shall they he divided into two kingdoms any more 
at all. Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, 
nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions. 
But I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have 
sinned, and will cleanse them, so they shall be my people, and I shall be 
their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all 
shall have no shepherd, they shal also walk in my judgments and ob- 
serve my statutes to do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I 
have given unto my servant Jacob, wherein your fathers have dwelt, and 
they shall dwell therein, even they and their children, and their children's 
children forever. And my servant, David, shall be their prince forever. 

"Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an 
everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply 
them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore. My 
tabernacle shall also be with them, yea, I will be their God and they shall 
be my people. And the heathen shall know that I, the Lord, do sanctify 
Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore." 

From this representation it appears, that the posterity of Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob are still God's peculiar people. That He brought them 
with a mighty arm from Egypt, by the way of the wilderness and through 
the Red sea. That He gave them laws and ordinances to which He com- 
manded the most strict obedience. And in case of failure and willful dis- 
obedience, the severest curses were denounced upon them. They were 
to be divided into two nations — to be scattered among the Gentiles, to the 
North and the South, to the East an the West. They were to be driv- 
en, by the hand of God, to the utmost parts of the earth — into Ass ria, 
Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hama and into the Western regions 
and the land of Sinim. They were to serve gods, the workmanship of 
men's hands, of wood and of stone. Israel is heavily charged with stub- 
born disobedience, and is threatened with being cut oft' suddenly, as in 
one day, and with great and accumulated distress and anguish. They are 
expressly charged with the sin of drunkenness, as adding drunkenness to 
thirst as their p evailing sin. 

On the other hand, the promises to them are very great, in case of obe- 
dience, or on sincere repentance in case of failure. After great suffer- 



38 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



ings, in the latter days, that is about the end of the Roman government, if 
they shall seek the Lord their God, they shall not be entirely forsaken, or 
totally destroyed. 

Moses also, by the command of God instituted the offices of high priest 
and priests to preside over and govern their religious rights and sacred 
services. He consecrated Aaron and his sons to these important offices, 
and vested them with the most extraordinary powers, that were ever con- 
ferred on a mere man. Philo, the famous Jewish writer, speaking in a 
lofty rhetorical way, gives this character of the high priest: "He was 
something more than human. He more nearly resembled God than all 
the rest. That he partook of the Divine and human nature. That he 
was, on the day of expiation, a mediator between God and his people." 

The high priest was the greatest person in the state, next to the king or 
judge, and represented the whole people. His business was to perform 
the most sacred parts of the Divine service, which consisted in offering 
up the appointed sacrifices, with many washings and carnal ordinances, 
as particularly established by Moses. He was clothed with the priestly 
garments, besides those used by the other priests, ist. The robe of the 
Ephod, in the hem of which were seventy-two bells. 2d. The Ephod* 
itself, which was like a waistcoat without sleeves, the hinder part of 
which reached down to the heels, and the fore part came but a little be- 
low the stomach. It was fastened on the shoulders. To each of the 
shoulder-straps was fastened a precious stone, on which was engraved 
the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 3d. He wore on his breast a 
piece of cloth doubled of a span square, which was termed the breast 
plate, and in it were set twelve precious stones, which had the names of 
the twelve patriarchs engraved on them. .4th. He wore a plate of gold 
on his forehead, which was tied on the lower part of his tiara, with pur- 
ple and blue ribbons; and on it was engraven Holiness to the Lord. He 
wore these only when he ministered in the temple. 

Moses also gave them particular injunctions with regard to circum- 
cision,! and all the furniture of the temple, particularly respecting the 

*The Ephod was considered as essential to all the parts of Divine worship, and without it none ever in- 
quired of God. — Clarke. 

tSome of the Jewish doctors observe, "That the number of proselytes in the great day of the Mesiah, wilj 
be so great that the church, omitting the ceremony of circumcision, will receive them into its bosom by 
ablution. — 4th vol. Leighton's Works. 



STATE OF Till-: JKWS. 



ark, which was to be made of shittim wood, or accasia, called an incorrupt- 
able wood in the Septuagint This ark was a kind of a chest or box, about 
four feet five inches long and two feet six inches wide, in which the two 
tables of the covenant, or law (called the testimony or witness) written 
by the finger of God, with Aaron's rod and pot of manna were 
to be laid up. Exodus XXV, 10. On the top of this was placed the 
mercy seat, at the ends of which were the twocherubims of gold, between 
whom the visible appearance of the presence of God, as seated on a 
.throne, was. The ark was the principal of all the holy things belonging 
to the tabernacle. II. Samuel, VI, 12. It gave a sanction of holiness to 
every place where it was brought.* II. Chronicles VIII, 11. Moses 
also commanded them to keep a continual fire upon the altar, of that 
which first was given from heaven, and to keep the candles burning upon 
the altar. He also appointed three grand annual religious festivals, in 
addition to the weekly Sabbath and daily and other sacrifices, which 
were td be religiously attended by the males at Jerusalem, on pain of be- 
ing cut off from the congregation. \ 1st. The passover, or feast of un- 
leavened bread. It continued seven days, from the 15th day of March 
until the 21st. On the eve of the feast, or the first day of unleavened 
bread, being the 14th day of the month, the paschal lamb was killed and 
eaten. On the seven following days were offered the paschal sacrifices, 
and they eat unleavened bread. The first and last days were Sabbaths, 
on which they held their holy convocations. On the tenth day of their 
first month, Abib, every man took a lamb or kid of the first year, without 
blemish, according to the house of his fathers, unless the household was 
too small, then two neighbors joined together. It was kept four days, 
until the fourteenth day, when it was killed. They eat the flesh that 
night roast with fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs; but not a 
bone of it was to be broken; and nothing of it was suffered to remain un- 
til morning; but if any did, it was to be burned with fire. During the 
seven days of unleavened bread, no leavened was to be found in their 

♦After their return from the captivity of Babylon, they had synagogues throughout the land; and at the 
east end of each synagogue, they placed an ark or chest in commemoration of the foregoing ark of the cov- 
enant in the temple; and in this they lock up the pentateuch written upon vellum with a particular ink.— 
Predeaux Con, 2d vol. 534. 

tBut the women did not go up, and seem to have been altogether excluded. Vid. 2d. vol. 63—68. 



40 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



houses, and none was to be eaten on pain of death. "To meet the letter 
of this precept in the fullest manner possible, the Jews, on the eve of this 
festival, institute a most rigorous search through every part of their houses, 
not only removing all leavened bread, but sweeping every part clean, 
that no crumb of bread should be left that had leaven in it — leaven was 
an emblem of sin, because it proceeded from corruption. (Note on the 
19th verse of the XII Exodus, by Dr. Clark,) The next day after, they 
offered to God a handful of barley, being the first fruit of the year, which 
the high priest ground, and putting some oil and frankincense upon it he 
presented it to God. Then they offered a lamb as a whole burnt offering. 
A meat offering 1 was also made, of fine flour mingled with oil. Also a 
drink offering of wine. And they were forbidden to eat either bread or 
parched corn, or green ears, until the offering was brought to God. 

2d. The feast of weeks, or pentecost, or harvest, being the first fruits 
of their labors. It was held seven weeks or fifty days after the Passover, 
or 13th day of March. The first fruits of the harvest were now offered 
up to God. They offered up two cakes made of new wheat. Deuter- 
onomy XVI, 19. This oblation was accompanied with a great number of 
sacrifices, and several other offerings and libations. 

3d. The feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, and was the 
great day of the atonement for sin. This was held on the tenth day of 
the seventh month, Tizri, answering to our September and October. This 
was the first month of the civil year, and the seventh of the ecclesiastical.* 
On the first day of this month was held the memorial of blowing of trum- 
pets. On the fifteenth day of the month was the feast of Tabernacles — 
it was kept under booths or green tents and arbors made of small limbs of 
trees, in memory of their dwelling in tents on their journey through the 
wilderness. All the males were bound to appear at Jerusalem before the 
Lord, and this was one of their greatest solemnities. The nation was al- 
so divided into twelve tribes, governed by a chief of each tribe, under 
Moses and Aaron. They were again arranged in their encampments in 
four divisions, under four standards, of a man, an eagle, a lion and an ox. 
He also established six cities of refuge, for the protection of the man-slay- 



*0n it was held a holy convocation unto the Lord, to afflict their souls and offering made by fire unto th& 
Lord. Leviticus 23—27. 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



41 



er, who was guilty through accident, or ignorance. lie appointed an 
avenger of blood. This was founded on what God says to Noah, Genesis 
I X. 5 — 6: "Surely your blood of your lives w ill I require — at the hand of 
man. 1 Who so sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, 
for in the image of God made lie man." And therefore "Whoever kill- 
eth his neighbor ignorantly, whom he hated not in time past, he shall flee 
into one of these cities and live, lest the avenger of blood pursue the slayer 
while his heart is hot and overtake him, and slay him." 

Moses chose seventy assistants and counccllors, who were afterwards 
called the great Sanhedrim, or council of the nation. When met in coun- 
cil, the high priest sat in the middle, and the assistants, or elders, on each 
hand in a semicircular form. He also appointed, by the command of God, 
Aaron and his sons, priests to the congregation of Israel. It was the 
duty of the priests, among other important objects, publicly to bless the 
people in the name of Jehova — to attend the daily worship by sacrifice in 
the tabernacle — to attend the religious festivals — to keep up the sacred 
fire on the altar, and to attend the army, when going to war, with the ark 
of the covenant, to ask counsel of the Lord,* to sound the trumpet and 
encourage the troops. Once in a year the high priests, clothed in his 
pontifical dress, went into the holy of the holies, when he had on the 
holy linen coat and the linen breeches on his flesh, and was girded with 
the linen girdle and attired with the linen mitre. Moses also gave them 
laws as to clean and unclean beasts, birds and fishes; the clean of which, 
alone, should be eaten or sacrificed. They were particularly and solemnly 
forbidden to eat swine's flesh, or the blood or fat of the beast. The fat 
and entrails of the sacrifices, were to be burned on the altar, which was 
to be made of earth, or stones of the brook, on which an instrument was 
not to come, that is, it was not to be of hewn stone. 

In process of time the people grew weary of being governed by the 
judges, an<J not only murmured but grew very turbulent and rebellious- 
They tumultuously demanded a king to rule over them, like the nations 
round about them. God, in His righteous judgment, gave them a king, 
at the same time, by His prophet, foretelling them of their fate under 
him. However, their change of government made no change in their 
dispositions. They still continued their transgressions and perverse dis- 



42 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



obedience, until God, wearied, as it were, with their obstinacy, and the 
gross iniquities of their king, divided their nation into two distinct king- 
doms, in the time of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, towit, the kingdom 
of Judah, to which the tribe of Benjamin was united; and the kingdom of 
Israel, consisting of the remaining Ten Tribes. Even this did not alarm 
them so as to prevent their rebellious spirit. But they continued for 
some hundred years in the most stubborn opposition to the laws God 
had given them by His servant, Moses, and idolatry seemed to become a 
more desirable object with them, as the threatenings of God, by His 
prophets, were pointed with great severity against it. They went so far 
as to invite Tiglah Pilnezer, king of Assyria, to aid them against the king 
of Syria, though so positively forbidden by God; and at Ahaz, king of 
Israel's particular request, they united with him and took Damascus, and 
carried the people of it captives to Ker or Keor, the ancient Charboras or 
Chabar. II. Kings XVI, 9. And such was their obstinacy and rebellion 
that it is worthy of observation, that Israel had not one single king from 
the commencement to the end of their kingdom, who feared the Lord, or 
governed according to His commandments. The fate of Israel was fixed. 
God, in His righteous displeasure, at length cast them off, and gave them 
into the hands of that very Tiglah Pilnezer who, it is probable, was the 
same with Arbaxes,* the first king of Assyria after the revolution of the 
Medes, about seven hundred and forty years after the Christian era, who, 
with Araz, king of Judah, as we have already mentioned, took Damascus 
and annexed it to the Assyrian empire; thus removing the barrier between 
that empire and Palestine, so that both kingdoms, Syria and Palestine, 
became an easy prey to this powerful monarch. He captured the Reu- 
benites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, who dwelt on the 
east side of Jordan, and carried them captives, and placed them in Halah 
and Harbor, and Harah, and to the river Gozan.* I. Chronicles V, 26. 

*Vid. 1st vol. Prideaux, page 2— 13 

tHarah, or as it is called by some, Hara, which in Hebrew signifies bitter, is the root from whence it is 
used to signify a mountainous tract, and thus gave that name to the country north of Assyria, near to Me- 
dia, and perhaps ran through it. On the north of this tract rung the river Araxis, now called Aras. Obarius 
296. Obarius, on whom much dependence may be placed, describes the source of the river Arazius to be in 
the mountains of Ararat, of Armenia, on the south of which river lies the little province of Arsea, errone- 
ously supposed by \him to be the Arsareth of Esdras; so that Harah is no other than the province of Iran, 
situated between the rivers Charboras or Araxis, as it is called in the Anabasis of Xenophon and Cyrus, now 
called Aras and Kur. Kur or Ker was the place Tiglah Pilnezer sent the captives of Damascus, and was to- 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



It is scarcely possible that the king of Assyria would have placed so tur- 
bulent a people, w hom he had led away captive from so distant a land, 
and whom he had reasons to greatly dislike, in any fertile part of his 
kingdom; it is most likely that he sent the greatest part of them on his 
northern frontier, as far as possible from a probability of doing him an 
harm by their restless dispositions. This is confirmed by the 
express words of the sacred historian, as will appear hereafter. About 
twenty years after this, or one hundred and thirty-four years before the 
Babylonish captivity, the remaining tribes, persisting in their impeni- 
tence, and neglecting to take warning by the miserable fate of their 
brethren, and not discovering the least sign of reformation, God raised up 
Shalmanazar, the successor of Tiglah Pilnezer, who besieged Hoshea, the 
king of Israel, in Samaria, and after taking the city, and victoriously con- 
quering the remaining tribes, took all the chief men, with the bulk of the 
nation, now lost to every principle of gratitude to God, and carried them 
also captives into Assyria, and placed most of them with their brethren, 
who had been formerly taken by Tiglah Pilnezer, in Halah, and in Har- 
bor, by the river Gozan, in the cities of the Medes, leaving only some poor 
remains of the people, who continued in the land in a miserable condition, 
Ezzarhaddon afterwards removed them to Babylon and other Eastern 
countries, which he had conquered. And to prevent danger from their 
number, part of them were removed into an adjoining district. This was 
about seven hundred and twenty-one years before the Christian era, and 
nine hundred and forty-seven after their coming out of Egypt. The 
king of Assyria also replaced in the cities of Samaria inhabitants from 
Babylon, and from Cutha, a river of Persia,* and Ava, Hamah and 
Sepharvin. II. Kings XVII, 24. 

Thus it appears, that the Ten Tribes, except a few who took refuge in 
Jerusalem, with the tribe of Judah,f were wholly deprived of their good- 

the south-east of Media— rride.iux, vol. 1, p. 13. This in mentioned also in Amos, I, 5, one seems to be a 
distant place even from Syria, and where captives were usually sent— Gozan, and the river of Gozan. 
Ptolemy places the region of the Gauzanites in the north-east of Mesopotamia, with the city Qizana near 
the river Charhoras at the foot of the mountain Masius, and another region called Gauzania. in Media, iu 
the latitude 40, 15, near the river Cyrus or Ker, mentioned above. The learned Bochart asserts that the 
city Gauzania lies in the midway between the mountain Chaboras and the Caspian sea, between the two 
streams of the river of Cyrus, and says that v prohably it gave the name of Gozan both to the river and the 
country; and this he takes to be the scriptural place, as being the city of the Medes, 

♦Josephus, Vol. 2, page 115. 

til. Chronicles, XI, 16. 



I 



44 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



ly land, and transferred into the northern parts of Assyria, between the 
Euxine and Caspian seas, among the cities of the Medes, except a part of 
them, who were settled something more to the south, in Persia, which 
was then a part of "the Assyrian monarchy. 

The two tribes and a half on the east side of Jordan, in the days of 
Jeroboam, king of Israel, amounted to eight hundred thousand mighty men 
of valor — II. Chronicles XIII, 3. — so that the whole people at the time of 
their captivity, including those tribes, being about two hundred and thir- 
ty-six years after Jeroboam, must have amounted to a very large number 
indeed. Here, then, in all likelihood, they must have remained a long 
time. Besides the Scriptures mentioning their being in the cities of the 
Medes "To this day," as in ILJKings XXIII, 41 and in I. Chronicles V, 26. 
Josephus mentions them in his book De Bell. lib. 2, ch. 28, of the Greek 
— in the Latin 808 — and in his preface 705 — in his Antiquities, lib. 20, ch. 
9 — and in lib. 11, 368. And in Sulpitius Severus, as quoted by Flemming 
from lib. 2, ch. 16, p ige 321, and who wrote about the year 400, says: 
"The Ten Tribes dispersed among the Parthians, Medes, Indians and 
Ethiopians, never returned to their ancient inheritance, but are subject 
to the sceptres of barbarious princes.- The Scriptures, however, declare 
in the most express terms that they shall return and be wholly restored, 
with the other tribes, to Jerusalem. If, then, the return of these tribes, 
wherever they may be, should be by the way of the Euxine sea, which is 
north from Judea, they need not pass over the Euphrates, which lies 
across in the middle between these countries. To accomplish this, if they 
come from the north-east, they may pass over the strait of Kamschatka, 
either by a literal fulfillment oithe promise, as in the cases of the Red 
sea and Jordan, to bring more declarative glory to God, or they may pass 
from island to island in bark boats, or in ships, or perhaps, as the most 
likely way, they may cross on the ice. They will be a long time in trav- 
eling, perhaps, to prepare them for their so great a change in life, as in 
the forty years in the wilderness, during which all the rebellions among 
them may perish, as they did, under like circumstances on their way to 
Canaan. 

The geographical situation of this part of Assyria is worth attending 
to. Media lies on the northern side of the Caspian sea, bounded by the 



t 



STATE OF THE IP2WS. 



15 



mountains of Araxis, 01 Chaboras, or Aras, as it is now called, which 
separates Media on the north from Armenia, and then hounded by the 
southern shore of the Caspian sea, which is not far north, having on the 
west the river Halys, running into the Black sea, which territory has 
been since possessed by the Tartars. Persia and Susiana are contiguous 
on the south.* The country is mountainous on the side of Assyria, and 
a ridge of mountains that run to the south of the Caspian sea, bounds a 
vast plain, a great part of which being covered with salt, is uncultivated 
and desert. Persia Irak extends at present over a great part of ancient 
Media. There was a time when the Medes shook off the Assyrian yoke, 
and ruled over that part of Asia which extended tow r ard the west, as far 
as the river Halys. That part of Media contiguous to Armenia, was 
distinguished by the name of Atropatena, the capital of which is named 
Gazar, or Gazaca, since called Ganzak. Persia extends from the frontier 
of Media. on the north, to the Persian gulf on the south, and west to the 
river Halys. The mountains separating Persia from Media, were called 
Halzardera, or the thousand mountains. The above is supposed to have 
given name to the river Gozan, which ran still farther north; but the sec- 
ond has been changed b} r length of time, which has been the fate of most 
places in that country. 

Soon after the removal of the Tea Tribes to this country, and about 
seven hundred years before Christ, the Medes overran the Assyrian em- 
pire, which, from remote antiquity, had extended over a great part of 
Asia. The Scythians, who lay still farther north, about one hundred 
years afterwards, conquered the Median empire in upper Asia, who 
retained the government but about twenty-eight years — Herodotus, lib. 
1, 157. — 1 Predeaux, 25, 35-9. Even this w T as long enough to promote 

*Ptolemy mentions a mountain, a city and a river, fey the name of Charaboras, which divides Assyria 
from Media towards the north-west. The river arises out of the mountain Massius, in the north of Meso- 
potamia, and appears to be the same as Ezekiel I, 1—3, calls Chebar. Habor, or as it is called in Hebrew, 
Chabor, must have been the city by this name. Ammianus calls the river by the name of Aboras. Benja- 
min, of Tudlea, the Jewish traveller, who lived in the latter end of the twelfth ctntury, says, that passing 
east, he came to the river Chebar, where he found sixty synagogues. He asserts that the prophet Ezekiel 
was buried here, and his tomb is there to be seen. Rabbi Pelakiel gives an account of some Jews he found 
in Tartary. who did not observe the traditions of the fathers. Upon euquiring why they had neglected 
them, they answered that they had never heard of them. He complains that the Jews were greatly demin- 
ished on the banks of the Euphrates, and in the ancient cities, where they were formerly computed to 
have amounted to nine hundred thousand.— Modern Universal History, Basnage 620. In Thebes he found 
two thousand Jews engaged in the silk and dyeing business.— Chilibriand Introd 15. Perhaps the number of 
synagogues is exaggerated. 



46 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



an acquaintance between the northern part of Media and the still more 
northern country of Scythia. The ancient Scythia was the general name 
given to Tartary, which then extended from the north of Obey, in Rus- 
sia, to the Dnieper; from thence across the Euxine, or Black sea; thence 
along the foot of mount Caucasus, by the rivers Ker or Kur, and Aras, to 
the Caspian sea; thence to the White mountains, including part of Rus- 
sia, with the district that lies between the Erozen sea and the Japan sea. 
— Sir William Jones, Dissert, vol. i, 142, and onward. It extends farther 
north than was known to the then neighboring nations, living to the 
southward and eastward. From the mouth of the Danube to the sea of 
Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia, is about one hundred and ten 
degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to (rather more) five thousand 
miles. The latitude reaches from the fortieth degree, which touches the 
wall v of China, above one thousand miles northward to the frozen regions 
of Siberia. — Robinson's view of the progress of society in Europe, page 
335. Mr. Bryant suggests that the word Scythia was derived from 
Cuthai, and if so, it casts more light on the prophetic declarations herein- 
after mentioned. Sir William Jones in speaking of the language of the 
Tartars, says: "That their language, like that of America, was in perpet- 
ual fluctuation, and that more than fifty dialects, as Mr. Hyde was cred- 
ibly informed, was spoken between Moscow and China, by the many 
different tribes and their several branches." Yet he doubts not that they 
all sprang from one common source; except, always, the jargon of such 
wandering mountaineers as, having long been divided from the main 
body of the nation, must, in a course of ages, have framed separate idioms 
for themselves. But need we go farther than the Assyrians and Persians 
themselves, who conquered the Ten Tribes? They had an original lan- 
guage of their own; but their successors, if we may believe the best his- 
torians, having become a mixture of several different nations, as Saracens,. 
Tartars, Parthians, Medes, ancient Persians, become Mohametans, Jews, 
and women from Georgia and other countries, transplanted into Persia, 
have now a debased language, compounded of those of all these different 
nations. — Hyde. The country into which the Ten Tribes were thus 
transplanted, was very thinly inhabited, and extended farther north than 
we are yet much acquainted with. Those captive Israelites must have 

\ 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



47 



greatly increased in numbers, before their migration more northward and 
westward. This is confirmed by the names of the towns in that country, 
which to this day bear witness to their founders. Samarcand, plainly de- 
rived from Samaria, is a very large and popular place. They have a 
city on a very high hill, called Mount Tabos. A city built on the river 
Ardou, is named Jericho, which river runs near the Caspian sea on the 
north and north-east. There are two cities called Chorazin, the greater 
and the less. The Tartar chiefs are called Morsoyes, very like Moyses, 
as Moses is called by the ancients. 

The Tartars boast of their descent from the Israelites, and the famous 
Tamerlane took a pride in announcing that he descended from the tribe 
of Dan. — Vid. note in page 62. 

The tribes of Judah and Benjamin are dispersed not in the North-East 
country, from whence the passage towards Syria and Palestine lies along 
the eastern border of the Euxine sea, but in the western and southern 
part of Asia and Africa, from whence the passage to Syria and Palestine 
lies far wide and distant from it. But all who are in, or come through 
the western part of Persia, near the western shore of the Caspian sea,* 
and to the eastward in Mesopotamia, must pass through the Euphrates to 
get to Palestine. 

After this we have no account of these tribes, except what is mention- 
ed in II. Kings XVII, 24 — 41, and I. Chronicles V, 26, wherein it is said 
these tribes were carried out of their own country into Assyria, to this 
day, &c. — until the time of Josephus, the Jewish historian, who mentions 
them "As then being somewhere beyond the Euphrates," and calls them 
Adiabenians.f The other two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, together 
with a few of the Ten Tribes interspersed among them, being in Asia and 
Europe, living in subjection to the Romans. One of the late Jewish 
writers says: "The Jews relate that the Ten Tribes were carried away, not 

*The Caspian straits are placed by Ptolemy between Media and Parthia. Vid. page 67. 

tThe river Lyens, whicb runs a little west of Ilala, was anciently called Zaba. or Diava, Ammianus, which 
signifies a wolf; whence this portion of Assyria was called Adiabane, and the river Lyeues was called some- 
time Ahavah or Adiabane. It may cast some light on this subject to know that Josephus, in his Antiqui- 
ties, Book 20, ch. 5, says that Helena, queen of Adiabene, who had embraced the Jewish religion, sent some 
of her servants to Alexandria, to buy a great quantity of corn; and others to Cyprus to buy a cargo of dried 
figs, which she distributed to the Jews that were in want. This was in time of the famine, mentioned by 
Agabus, Acts. XI, 28, and took place in Anno Domini 47, or thereabouts. This shows that there were many 
Jews in that country. 



48 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



only into Media and Persia, but into the Western countries beyond the 
Bosphorus." The next author who mentions them is Ortelius, who 
speaks of them as being in Tartary. — Vid. note of Benjamin, of Tudela, 
in page 62. 

The famous Giles Fletcher, LL. D., in his treatise on this subject, print- 
ed in 1677, observes: "As for two of the Samaritan Israelites, carried off 
by Salmanazer, who were placed in Harak and Harbor, they bordered 
both on the Medians, (where the others were ordered on the north and 
north-east of the Caspian sea, a barren country.) So that these tribes 
might easily meet and join together when opportunity served their turn, 
which happened to them not long after, when all the provinces of Media, 
Ch aid a ran and Mesopotamia, with their governors, Merrdach, Baladin 
and Dejoces, called in the Scriptures Arphaxad, by desertion, fell away 
from the Assyrians, in the tenth year of Esar-haddon. And that these 
did, not long after, reunite themselves --and join in one nation, as they 
were before, being induced partly by their own desires, as disdaining 
even to live commixed with other people, especially such abandoned 
idolaters, and partly by the violence of the Medians, who expelled them 
thence." 

That the Ten Tribes were transported into some of the Northern prov- 
inces of the then Assyrian Empire, bordering on the Caspian and Euxine 
seas, and to the northward and north-east of them, is universally admitted, 
and fully proved by the sacred records. And that they continued there 
a considerable time, and became very numerous, can scarcely be doubted; 
but that they cannot now be found there, in any great numbers, is also 
very certain. That there should be found some remnant still in that 
country, adds to the probability of the account already given. In the 
sudden removal or migration of a nation from one country to another, it 
is not probable that every individual would be included. Many attached 
to the soil by long habit, or taste, or birth, or connected with the natives 
by domestic circumstances, or from various other causes, would naturally 
remain behind, and their posterity as naturally increasing by time, 
would thus prove the fact of their first existence there as a nation. 
Thus it was in Samaria and Jerusalem, when Salmanazer carried them 
away captive; some few were left behind, who continued with Judah and 



STATIC OK Tin-: JKWS. 



1<> 



Benjamin, and were finally carried away byEzzarhaddon or Nebuchadnez- 
zar.* It is therefore an important question, what became of them? Kor 
no believer in revelation, as already observed, can admit that they are lost 
to the world, while God has made so many promises that He will bring 
them in the latter days from the ends of the earth, and that they, together 
with the other two tribes, shall be reinstated in their beloved city. Now, 
as we know them to have been exposed in the place of their captivity, at 
different periods to oppression and the severest calamities; particularly 
to the continual blasphemous worship of idolaters, it certainly seems 
reasonable to conclude, independent of any positive testimony which 
may be alleged on the subject, that so discontented and restless a 
people, suffering under so severe a captivity, would strive to change their 
condition, and endeavor to remove as far as possible from their oppress- 
ors. This resolution was greatly promoted by the facility with which 
such a measure might be effected, on so distant a frontier, while the king- 
dom was involved in desolating w r ars with the nations around them, and 
when the people with whom they sojourned must have rejoiced at their 
leaving them, being such troublesome inmates. They must have known 
the success, first of the Scythians, then the Medes, and then the Persians, 
under Cyrus, which was followed by the easy conquest of the whole of 
Media and Persia, as Herodotus has shewn in his history, and by which 
they must have been encouraged in so important a business. The power 
of the kingdom was also comparatively weak, at so great a distance from 
the capital, .and distracted with political cabals and insurrections against 
Astigages, who'reigned over both Media and Persia, and who was con- 
quered by his grandson, Cyrus. And is it not probable but that a remov- 
al more north, by which such restless subjects would leave their improve- 
ments and real property to the other inhabitants, and extend the territory 
of their governors, would not have been disagreeable either to the princes 
or people of that country. Again, "The usual route from the Euxine 
sea to the northward of the Caspian sea, through Tartary and Scythia, to 
Serica and the northern parts of China, by which the merchants carried 
on a great trade, might enable the tribes to travel northward and east- 
ward, towards Kamschatka." At least this is the assertion of that able 
geographer D'Anville, in his ancient geography, written before the late 



50 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



discoveries of Cook and others. — Vol. II, 521-3. But the most minute 
and last account we have of them, in the thirteenth chapter of the sec- 
ond Apocryphal book of Esdras, 39 — 50. Esdras had a dream or vision 
— an angel appeared and interpreted it to him, in the following detail: 
"And whereas thou seest that He, Jesus the Christ, gathered another 
peaceable multitude unto Him; those are the Ten Tribes, who were car- 
ried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Hosea, the king, 
whom Salmanazar, the king of Assyria, led away captive. And he car- 
ried them over the waters, and so they came into another land. But they 
took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude 
of the heathen, and go forth into a farther comitry, where never mankind 
dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept 
*!! their own land. And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow pas- 
sages of the river; for the Most High then shewed signs for them, and 
held still the flood, till they were passed over; for through that country 
there was a great way to go, namely of a year and a half. And the same 
region is called Arsareth." Here was a great river to go through, called 
Euphrates, as all great rivers were called by the Jews. It could not be 
the river of the East known by that name, because it was in a further 
country, where mankind never dwelt. But the river Euphrates lay to 
the south-eastward of them, and runs through an inhabited country. 
They were also put to great difficulties to pass this river, until God shew- 
ed signs to them, and held still the flood, which is a very expressive 
term for the passage being frozen over, to enable them to pass in safety. 
But to proceed with the vision: "Then dwelt they there' until the latter 
times. And now when they shall begin to come, the Highest shall stay 
the springs of the stream again, that they may go through — therefore 
sawest thou the multitude in peace. But those who be left behind of thy 
people, are they who are found within my borders. Now, when He de- 
stroyeth the multitude of the nations that are gathered together, He shall 
defend His people who remain. And then He shall shew them great 
wonders." Hear the words of Isaiah XI, 15 — 16, and compare them 
with the above. "And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the 
Egyptian sea, and with His mighty wind shall He shake His hand over 
the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



<lrv shod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of His peo- 
ple w ho shall Be lefl from Assyria; like as il was to Israel in the day 
that he came up out of the land of Egypt." This sea and river cannot 
mean the Euphrates, the Nile, or the Red sea, as neither is in the way 
from the northern parts of Media, which were once part of Assyria, 
where these trihes dwelt. The Caspian or Circasuui strait, through the 
mountains of Caucasus, lies about midway between the Euxine sea to 
the west, and the Caspian sea to the east, through Iberia. After passing 
through the strait from the north, by keeping a little west you pass on in 
the neighborhood of the Euxine sea, through Armenia Minor, into Syria 
Proper, and by the head of the Mediterranean sea to Palestine, without 
going over the Euphrates. But all who are in Persia in Armenia Major, and 
to the eastward in Mesopotamia, and beyond Babylon, must pass theEuphra- 
tes to get there. But as before observed, the Jews called all great rivers 
by the name of Euphrates, or of some large river well known to them. 
Nay, they called the invasion of a formidable enemy by the name of a 
large river, when they came from the North. "Now, therefore, behold 
the Lord bringcth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many 
even the king of Assyria, and all his glory — and he shall come up over all 
his channels and go over all his banks." ''Thus saith the Lord, behold 
waters rise up out of the North, and shall be an overflowing flood, and 
shall overflow the land, and all that is therein; then the men shall cry, and 
all the inhabitants of the land shall howl, at the noise of the stamping of 
the hoofs of horses, at the rushing of His chariots." — Isaiah VIII, 7. — 
Jeremiah XL VII, 2 — 3. 

By the above story out of Esdras, it appears, as it does in the Bible, 
that these tribes were taken by Salmanazar, in the time of Hoshea, their 
kino-, and carried away over the waters into a strange land, that is, trans- 
planted into Media, and Persia. There, after suffering a long time, how 
long is not known, but it is pretty clear that it must have been for some 
hundred years, they repented of their former idolatry, and became dis- 
contented and restless, being distressed and wearied out with the folly 
and wicked practices of their idolatrous neighbors around them. They 
consulted with their brethren in the north-western part ot Persia^ 
in the cities of the Medes, who were not far from them, and took 



52 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



counsel together, and resolutely determined to leave the multi- 
tude of the heathen, and travel further North, in search of a 
country uninhabited and not claimed by any one and of course free from 
the troublesome, dangerous neighborhood and example of the heathen — 
nay, a country where mankind never yet dwelt. It is not uncommon for 
men to run into extremes; though it is not improbable but that they might 
have had some Divine direction in the business. They resolved to risk 
every danger and inconvenience, to avoid opposition to, and temptation 
from, keeping the statutes of the Lord, which they had so neglected in 
their own Holy Land, having been led away by the awful examples of 
the natives around them. 

The foregoing extract from the Apochryphal book of Esdras, is not quot- 
ed as having Divine authority ;but merely as historic work of some Jew of 
an early day. Bengelius and Basnage, both assert that it is generally 
admitted by the learned, that these books of Esdras were written at the 
beginning of the second century. They are held uncanonical by all prot- 
estants, not having been twen quoted by the fathers, or any early Chris- 
tian writer, as of Divine authority. The Church of England, by her 
sixth article, permits them to be read for example of life and instruction of 
manners; but does not allow them to establish any doctrine of religion. 
The Roman Catholics consider them as of Divine authority. This quota- 
tion from the first book of Esdras is used here, as any other account of an 
early transaction, by an author living near the time of the event, would 
be. This Jew seems to be a serious and devout writer, on a subject he 
appears to be acquainted with, and from his situation and connections, 
might be supposed to know something of the leading facts. And wheth- 
er he wrote in a figurative style, or under the idea of similitudes, dreams 
or visions, he appears to intend the communication of events that he be- 
lieved had happened, and as far as they are corroborated by subsequent 
facts, well attested, they ought to have their due weight in the scale of 
evidence. 

The Israelites, then, accordingly executed their purpose, and left their 
place of banishment in a body, although it is hardly to be doubted but 
some, comparatively few, from various motives, as before observed, re- 
mained behind; although their places may have been filled up by many 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



53 



natives, who might prefer taking their chances with them in their emi- 
grations, which were common to the people of that region, especially the 
old inhabitants of Damascus removed to the river Ker, by Tiglah Pilne- 
zer, some time before the taking of Samaria, and the removal of the Ten 
Tribes. They proceeded until they came to a great water or river, 
which stopped their jDrogress, as they had no artificial means of passing 
it, and reduced them to great distress and almost despair. How long 
they remained here, cannot now be known; but, finally, God again ap- 
peared for them, as He had done for their fathers of old at the Red sea, 
by giving them some token of His presence, and encouraging them to go 
on; thus countenancing them in their project of forsaking the heathen. 
God stayed the flood, or perhaps froze it into firm ice, and they passed 
over by the narrow passages of the river, which may have been occasion- 
ed by the islands, so they might go from island to island, until they land- 
ed on the opposite side in safety. They might have been a long time ex- 
ploring the banks of this water, as some of the nations of Europe, with 
all their means of knowledge, have s'nee done, before they discovered 
these narrow passages, wmich gave them hopes of success. 

Here, then, they found a desert land, of a better soil and climate, and 
went on, and in process of time travelled so far as to take a year and a 
half, which, construed according to the prophetic rule of their ancestors, 
a year for a day, would make upwards of five hundred years, and thus 
literally found a country wherein mankind never yet dwelt. 

But although these children of Israel might have passed over the straits 
Kamschatka, and peopled the northern parts of America, and so went on 
to the Southward and Eastward, and left some settlers wherever they re- 
mained any time; yet it does not follow that they might not have been 
attended by many of the inhabitants of Scythia and Tartary, who were 
willing to try their fortunes with them. Neither does it follow, that some 
persons of other nations might not have been driven by storms at sea on 
the American coasts, and made settlements there. All these might have 
contributed to establish customs among them, different from their ow n. 
and also might adulterate and change their language in some instance-, as 
was done in Babylon. 

In this land, then, they are to remain until the latter time, when Jehova 



54 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



will "Put forth His hand again a second time, to recover the remnant of 
His people that remaineth from Assyria, from Hamah or Hala, and the 
Western regions;* and He will set up an ensign for the nations, and will 
assemble the outcasts of Israel." "And the Lord with His mighty wind 
will shake His hand over the river, and will strike it into seven streams, 
and make them pass over dry shod, and there shall be a highway for the 
remnant of His people, who remain from Assyria, as it was unto Israel in 
the day that He came out of the land of Egypt." — Isaiah XI, 16. As we 
have before mentioned. 

These tribes have been thus lost for over two thousand years. Those 
of Judah and Benjamin being, a considerable time after the conquest of 
Samaria, carried away captives to Babylon, by Nebuchadnezzar, and 
perhaps with some of their brethren of the Ten Tribes, who 
might have remained with them in Jerusalem, were settled in Bab- 
ylon during seventy years, when they returned to Jerusalem again by the 
consent of their conquerors, and remained in possession of their beloved 
country till the coming of the Mesiah, whom they perversely put to death 
on the cross, and voluntarily imprecated that His blood might rest on 
them and their children; which has since been awfully verified, by their 
misery and dispersion, having been led away into captivity by the Ro- 
mans, who burned their city and made their land a desolation and a curse. 
From this awful and tremendous fate, the Ten Tribes, by their previous 
captivity and banishment, have been happily delivered, having had no 
hand in this impious transaction. 

It was about forty years after the crucifixion, that the conquest of the 
Romans, and the burning of their temple and city took place. The Ro- 
mans ploughed up the cite of the city according to the Messiah's pre- 
diction, and drove the Ten Tribes of Judah and Benjamin as slaves and 
criminals into every country of the East. They sold thousands of them as 
they do cattle, and they literally became a bye-word and a hissing with 
all nations. But at this time their brethren, the Ten Tribes of Israel, 
were in banishment on the frontiers of Persia and Media, from whence 
they have disappeared and are generally supposed to be lost. And were 
it not for the promises of that God, who cannot deceive, a God of holiness 

♦Lowth's translation. 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



55 



and truth, we should give Up an\ inquiry after them as useless. But He 
whose word is truth itself has said: "That in the latter days, He will 
bring again the captivity of His people Israel and Judah, and will cause 
them to return to the land that He gave to their fathers, that they should 
possess it. Go and proclaim these words towards the North, and say re- 
turn thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord. At that time they shall call 
Jerusalem the throne of the Lord. And all the nations shall be gathered 
to it, in the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any 
more after the stubbornness of their evil hearts. In those days the house 
of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together 
out of the land of the North, to the land that I have given as an inherit- 
ance unto your fathers." — Jeremiah III, 12 — 18. "For thus saith the 
Lord, sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the 
nations — publish ye — praise ye — and say, O Lord save thy people, the 
remnant of Israel. Behold! I will bring them from the North country, 
and gather them from the coasts of the East, and with them the blind aw 1 
the lame, the women witlf child and her that travelleth with child togeth- 
er, a great company shalt return thither." — Jeremiah III, 7 — 8. 

"Therefore behold! the days come saith the Lord, that they shall no 
more say, the Lord liveth who brought up the children of Israel out of 
the land of Egypt; but the Lord liveth who brought up and led the seed 
of the house of Israel out of the North country, and from all countries 
whither I have driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land," — 
Jeremiah XXIII, 7 — 8. "Behold! the days come saith the Lord, that the 
ploughman shall overtake the reaper; and the treader of grapes, him who 
soweth seed. And the mountains shall drop new wine, and all the hills 
shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and 
they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them. And they shall plant 
vineyards and drink of the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens 
and eat the fruit thereof, and I will plant them upon their land, and they 
no more shall be pulled up out of the land, which I have given them saith 
the Lord thy God." — Amos IX, 13 — &c. "For they shall abide many 
days without a king and without a prince, without a sacrifice and with- 
out an image (the word means a pillar, or chief support, and may be 
translated, and altar, which suits the context) and without an ephod and 



56 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



without a teraphim; but afterwards shall the children of Israel return and 
seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord 
and His goodness, in the latter days." — Hosea III, 4 — 5. 

u God calls to His people — Ho! Ho! come forth and flee from the land 
of the North, for I have spread you abroad as the four winds from heav- 
en,- saith the Lord." "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold! I will save 
my people from the East country and from the West country, or the 
country of the going down of the sun." — Zechariah II, XIII, 7, as it is in 
the margin of the Bible. 

We say, if it was not for these and such like promises, it might be 
thought presumption and folly, for any one to waste his time in inquir- 
ing after this long lost people, as it would then have been most natural to 
conclude that they had passed into oblivion, with the nations of the East 
and the West, their conquerors, as Babylon, Nineveh, Assyria and Egypt. 
But as Jehova cannot deceive, but is the same^yesterday, to-day and for- 
ever, whose words are yea, and amen, who hath said "Yet now thus saith 
Jehova, who created thee O Jacob! and who formed thee O Israel! fear 
thou not, for I have redeemed thee — I have called thee by thy name — 
thou art mine — fear not for I am with thee — from the East I will bring 
thy children, and from the West I will gather thee together. I will say 
to the North give up, and to the South withhold not, bring my sons from 
afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." — Isaiah, XLII, 1 — 9. 

From all this it plainly appears from whence the Jews will be gathered 
together a second time, when they shall be brought home again. They 
are to come from Assyria and Egypt, where it is well known very many 
of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin are now to be found, and from Pa 
thros, and from Cush, and from Elam, (different parts of Persia, where 
they are of the same tribes, with perhaps a small remnant of the Israel- 
ites) and from Shinar, still more East, consisting wholly of the two be- 
fore mentioned tribes, and may include the black Jews, and from Hama 
near the Caspian sea, where some of the Ten Tribes may have remained 
behind, on the departure of their brethren to the Northward, and from 
the Western region. 

Thus we are to look to some Western region, for a number, rather for 
the main body, of this dispersed nation. Now as no other part of the 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 



r>7 



world has yet been discovered where the body of the Israelites as a na- 
tion, have been found, it may be justly concluded, that they must at least 
be discovered in some Western region^ not yet taken notice of, where 
they are kept till the day of their delivcrence. 

To a believer in the Divinity of the Bible, there can be no hesitation, 
but that all this will come to pass in the most literal and extensive sense. 
These lost tribes must be somewhere on our earth, answerable to the 
north andjhe west from Jerusalem — afar off', even to the ends of the 
earth. And as from the present signs of the times, particularly of the 
Roman government and the reign of Antichrist, we may rationally con- 
clude that these are the latter times, the last times of the Roman govern- 
ment, and that the great things foretold in the word of God, are fast ac- 
complishing, it becomes a duty now, to search dilligently into these great 
subjects of Christian consideration and attend to what the spirit of God 
has revealed of these eventful times, lest the language of Christ to the 
Pharisees, may become applicable to us: '"Ye hypocrites! ye can discern 
the face of the sky and the earth; but how is it, that (notwithstanding all 
your light and knowledge from revelation) ye do not discern this time." 



We will therefore proceed to collect together what may be yet known 
of this favored, though sinful and suffering people, once so dear to the 
God of all the earth, and who still remain a standing and unanswerable 
monument and proof of the prophecy to all nations. And if we can do 
no more than call the attention of Christians, of learning and leisure, to 
this important subject, it will not be lost labor. 



— Luke XII, 56. 




<An (Inquiry into the (Question, §n $/hat <gart of the §lohe is it (Most 
<£ikely that these §escendents of (Israel may now he Sound, 
(Arising from the (§iscoyeries and gads that have 
not <§ome to the (Knowledge of the 
@ivilized ^orld until of 
(Bate gears. 

KL_QMVfiVKQ_9 

jVERY quarter of the world has been traversed and explor- 
ed by the hardy and adventurous seamen of modern Europe 
and America, as well as by travellers whose curiosity and 
indefatigable labors have scarcely left any considerable 
tract ot the globe unnoticed, that we can scarcely presume 
to make the least discovery in any hitherto unknown part 
of the world. We must look to the histories of countries 
already known to the geographer and traveller, and apply 
to the Divine Scriptures for the compass which is to direct our course. 
Hence it must answer to the following particulars: 

1. It must be a country to the north and west from Judea. — Jeremiah 
III, 17—18. XXIII, 7—8; Zechariah II, 6. 

2. It must be a far country from Judeah. Isaiah XLIII, 6; XLVI 
11* 

3. It must answer the term, from the ends of the earth. Isaiah XLIII, 
1—6. 

*Remember the former things of old time, verily I am God and none else; I am God and there is none 
like unto me. From the beginning making known the end, and from ancient times the things that are not 
yet done, saying my council shall stand, and whatever I have willed I will effect. (Jailing from the East, 
the eagle, and from a land far distant the man o my counsel. As 1 have spoken, so will I bring it to pass; I 
have formed the besign and I will execute it.— Lowth's translation. 




LATE DISCOVERIES. T><> 

4. It must be in the Western regions, or the country of the going 
down of the sun. — Xecharia VIII, 7. 

5. It must be a land, that at the time of the tribes going to was with- 
out inhabitants, and free from heathen neighbors. — II. Esdras XIII, 41. 

6. It must be beyond the seas from Palestine, the country to which 
part of them are to return in ships. — Isaiah LX, 9; XVII, 2. 

The Scriptures are very positive in four of the above particulars, the fifth 
is founded on the text from II. Esdras, and although it is not pretended 
that the Apocryphal books bear any comparison as to Divine inspira- 
tion, with the Bible; yet as the book was written by a Jew, somewhere 
about the year 100, it rnay, as has already been observed, be used as 
evidence of an historic fact, equally with any other historian, and if cor- 
roborated by other facts, will add to the testimony. 

As to the sixth particular, this is not only supported by the text, but it 
is the opinion of that great and judicious writer; the Rev. Mr. Faber, on 
the whole representation of the Scriptures, who certainly deserves the 
attention of every serious Christian. He seems very positive ''That some 
prevailing maritime power of faithful worshippers, will be chiefly instru- 
mental in converting and restoring a part of the Jewish nation. This 
seems to be declared in Scripture, more than once, with sufficient plain- 
ness." "Who are these? like a cloud they fly, and like doves to their 
holes. Surely the Isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish, 
among the first, to bring thy sons from afar; their silver and their gold 
with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, unto the holy one of 
Israel, because he has glorified me." — Isaiah LX, S — 9. Again it is ex- 
pressly said, they are to be gathered from the coasts of the earth, imply- 
ing that they are to have some connection with the sea, and the address 
which God makes to them puts it out of doubt. "Ho! land spreading 
wide the shadow of thy wings, which are beyond the rivers of Cush or 
Cuthia, accustomed to send messengers by sea, even in bulrush vessels 
upon the surface of the waters. Go, swift messenger unto the nation 
dragged away and plucked; unto a people wonderful from the beginning 
hitherto; unto a nation expecting,expecting and trampled under foot; whose 
lands the rivers have spoiled." — Isaiah XVIII, 1 — 2. "At that season a 
present shall be led to the Lord of Hosts; a people dragged away and 



60 



LATE DISCOVERIES. 



plucked; even a people wonderful from the beginning hitherto; a nation 
expecting, expecting and trampled under foot; whose lands, rivers 
have spoiled, unto the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, 
Mount Zion." — Isaiah XVIII, 7. Mr. Faber has given a paraphrase of 
part of the foregoing text, thus: (3d. vol. 94) "Go, swift messenger, to a 
nation, long apparently forsaken by God; a nation dragged away from 
their own country and plucked; a nation wonderful from their beginning 
hitherto; a nation perpetually expecting their promised Messiah, and yet 
trampled underfoot; a nation whose land the symbolical rivers of foreign 
invaders have for ages spoiled. Go, swift messenger! You who by your 
skill in navigation, and- your extensive commerce and alliances, are so 
qualified to be carriers of a message unto a nation dragged away; to the 
dispersed Jews; a nation dragged away from its proper seat, and plucked 
of its wealth and power; a people wonderful from its beginning to this 
very time for the special providence which has ever attended them and 
directed their fortunes; a nation still lingering in expectation of the Mes- 
siah, who so long since came and was rejected by them, and now is com- 
ing again in glory; a nation universally trampled under foot; whose land, 
armies of foreign invaders, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Syromacedonians, 
Romans, Saracens and Turks have overrun and depopulated." — Letter on 
Isaiah, 18. 

"My worshippers beyond the river Cush. (which must to the north- 
ward and westward of Jerusalem) shall bring as an offering to me, the 
daughters of my dispersion." — Zeph. Ill, 10. And Zechariah treating of 
the same subject says: "I will hiss for them (the tribes of Ephraim and 
his children, mentioned in the former verses) for I have redeemed them; 
and they shall increase as they have (heretofore) increased. And I will 
bring them again also (that is besides those from far countries) out of the 
land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria, and I will bring them in- 
to the land of Giliad and Lebanon, and place shall not be found for them. 
And he (that is Ephraim) shall pass through the sea with affliction, and 
shall smite the waves of the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry 
up, and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of 
Egypt shall pass away, and I will strengthen them in the Lord, and they 
shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord." — Zechariah X, 8 — 12. 



LATE DISCOVERIES. 



<>1 



Here is an explicit difference made between the return of Judah and 
Ephraim, that is, between the Jews and Israelites — the latter is to come 
from a far country — he is to pass through a great water, or over the sea, 
or both. The words here made use of may be very applicable to people 
who have no knowledge or experience of passing over the sea in ships, 
whose sickness is generally extremely distressing. 

.Mr. Faber supposes that the land spreading wide the shadow of her 
wings, may be some maratime nation, the sails of whose ships, and the 
protection given by them, are here prophesied of. He seems to think 
this may refer to Great Britain, in like manner, as she may be designated 
by Tarshiah, which was formerly a great trading and maratime country. 
Yet he thinks it possible it may refer to some other maratime nation — 
but it is asked, why not to a union of maratime nations, on so important 
and difficult an undertaking. 

From a serious consideration of all the foregoing circumstances, we 
seem naturally led to have recourse to the late discovered continent of 
America, which the first visitants found filled with inhabitants, and 
though called savages, differed essentially from all the savages ever known 
to the people of the old world before. In the first place they resembled 
(considerably) in appearance, the people of the oriental nations. Mr. 
Penn, who saw and communicated with them in a particular manner, on 
his first arrival in America, while in their original, uncontaminated state, 
before they were debased and ruined by their connection with those who 
called themselves civilized and Christians, was exceedingly struck with 
their appearance. In one of his letters to his friends in England he says: 
"I found them with like countenances with the Jewish race; and their 
children of so lively a resemblance to them, that a man would think him- 
self in Duke's place or Berry street, in London, when he seeth them." 
(Penn's works, 2 vol.704, year 1683.) "They wore ear-rings and nose 
jew r els; bracelets on their arms and legs; rings on their fingers; necklaces 
made of highly polished shells found in their rivers and on their coasts. 
Their females tied up their hair behind, worked bands around their heads 
and ornamented them with sh lis and feathers, and are fond of strings of 
beads round several parts of their bodies. They use shells and turkey 
spurs around the tops of their moccasins, to tinkle like little bells as they 



62 



LATE DISCOVERIES. 



walk." Isaiah proves this to have been the custom of the Jewish women 
or somethingjmuch like it. "In that day, says the prophet, the Lord will 
take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and 
their cauls, and their round tires like the moon. The chains, and the 
bracelets, and j:hejmufflers. The bonnets and the ornaments of the legs, 
and the head-bands, and the tablets, and the ear rings, the rings and the 
nose jewels." — Isaiah III, 18. They religiously observed certain feasts, 
and feasts very similar to those enjoined on the Hebrews, by Moses, as 
will hereinafter more particularly be shown. In short, many, and indeed, 
it may be said, most of the learned men, who did pay any particular at- 
tention, to these natives of the wilderness at their first coming among them, 
both English and Spaniards, were struck with their great likeness to the 
Jews. The Indians inJNew Jersey, about 1681, are described as persons 
straight in their limbs, beyond the usual proportion in most nations; very 
seldom crooked or deformed; their features regular; their countenances 
sometimes fierce, in common rather resembling a Jew, than a Christian. 
(Smith's History of New Jersey, 14.) 

It shall now be our business to collect those facts in their history that 
are well attested, with those which may be known of them from personal 
knowledge of men of character, or from their present manners, customs 
and habits; although we are well advised, and it should be constantly 
borne in mind, that the corruption of both principle and practice, intro- 
duced amongst them by their connection with Europeans has so debased 
their morals and vitiated all their powers of mind, that they are quite de- 
generated from their ancestors. 

An old Charibbee Indian, in a very early day, thus addressed one of 
these white people: "Our people are become almost as bad as yours. 
We are so much altered since you came among us, that we hardly know 
ourselves, and we think it is owing to so melancholy a change, that hurri- 
canes are more frequent than formerly. It is the evil spirit, that has done 
all this — who has taken our best lands from us, and given us up to the 
dominion of Christians." — Edward's History West Indies, 1 vol. 28. 
And yet we very gravely assert that we have benefited the Indian nations 
by teaching them the Christian religion. 

The Indians have so degenerated, that they cannot at this time give 



LATK DISCOVKRIKS. 



any tolerable account of the origin of their religious rites, ceremonies and 
customs, although religiously attached to them as the command of the 
Great Spirit to their forefathers. Suppose a strange people to be discov- 
ered, before wholly unknown to the civilized world, and an inquiry was 
instituted into their origin, or from what nation they had sprang, what 
mode of examination would be most likely to succeed and lead to a 
rational solution of the question? 

In our opinion a strict inquiry into the following particulars, would be 
the best means of accomplishing this valuable purpose: 

Their language. 

Their received traditions. 

Their established customs and habits. 

Their known religious rijtes and ceremonies. 

And, lastly, their public worship and religious opinions and prejudices. 

Therefore to commence this inquiry, with some degree of method, we 
shall confine ourselves to these five particulars, as far as we can find 
well authenticated data to proceed upon. 



-OF THE- 




ORTH AMERICAN 



NDIM.^ 



(HEN we consider how soon the family of Noah, scattered 
through Asia, Africa and Europe, lost almost every trace 
of their original language, so far at least as not to be easi- 
ly understood by the nations into .which they became 
divided — established different manners and customs pecu- 
liar to each nation or people — and finally formed for them- 
selves respectively, such absurd and wholly different modes of relig'ous 
worship, as well as principles and doctrines, and finally became, at differ- 
ent times, to bear the most inveterate hatred for each other, we could no 
longer, at this remote period, hope for much success in looking for con- 
vincing testimony to prove the fact satisfactorily, though we should 
stumble on the actual descendents of the children of Abraham, the lost 
Ten Tribes of Israel, after so long a dispersion and entire separation 
from the rest of the world. And if we do find any convincing tes- 
timony on this subject, we must attribute it to the over-ruling provi- 
dence of that God who is wonderful in counse 1 , and true to all His prom- 
ises. Hear Sir William Jones, whose authority will have great influence 
on all who know his character. In his discourse on the origin of the 
East Indians or Hindoos, Arabs, Tartars, &c, he says: "Hence it follows, 
that the only family aft_r the flood, established itself in the northern parts 



i-.w.i ,\(.r. of iin: American indian. 



of Iran, now Persia. That as the family multiplied, they were divided 
into three distinct branches, each retaining little, at first, and loosing the 
whole by degree^, of their common primary language; but agreeing 
severally on new expressions tor new ideas." 

Father Charlevoix, a famous French writer, who came over to Canada 
very early, and paid particular attention to the Indian natives, says: 
"That the only means (which others have neglected) to come at the 
original of the Indian natives, are the knowledge of their languages, and 
comparing them with those of the other hemisphere, that arc consid- 
ered as primitives. Manners very soon degenerate by means of com- 
merce with foreigners, and by a mixture of several nations uniting in one 
body — and particularly so among wandering tribes, living without prin- 
ciple, laws, education or civil governments, especially where absolute 
want of the necessaries of life takes place, and the necessity of doing 
without, causes their names and uses to perish together. From their dia- 
lects we may ascend to the mother tongues themselves. These are 
distinguished by being more nervous than those derived from them, be- 
cause they are formed from nature, and they contain a great number of 
words, imitating the things whereof they are the signs. Hence he con- 
cludes that if these characteristical marks which are peculiar to any orien- 
tal nation are found in the Indian languages, we cannot reasonably doubt 
of their being truly original, and consequently that the people who speak 
them have passed over from that hemisphere." 

This, then must be an inquiry into facts, the investigation of which, 
from the nature of the subject, must be wholly founded on well authenti- 
cated accounts recorded by writers of character, who may be consulted 
on this occasion; or from the information of such persons who have been 
long domesticated with particular nations, suspected to have originated 
from the other hemisphere; or of persons whose occupation or mode of 
life has led them to visit parts of the globe the most likely to afford some 
light on this abstruse subject. And even here our assistance cannot be 
expected to be great; but whatever we are able to discover, we will put 
together, in hopes that by pursuing this inquiry, though we should arise 
no further than bare rudiments, the curiosity of the more learned and per- 
severing, may produce some further and more adequate discovery to 



66 LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



enlighten mankind. The difficulties attending this attempt must be great. 
The Indian languages, having never been reduced to any certainty by 
letters, must have been exposed to great changes and misconceptions. 
They are still a wandering people, having no knowledge of grammar or 
of arts and sciences. No monuments of antiquity — no mechanical trades 
— oppressed and distressed on all hands — driven from their original resi- 
dence into the wilderness, and even there not suffered to remain station- 
ary; but still driven from place to place — debased and enervated by the 
habitual use of intoxicating spirits, afforded them by traders for the double 
purpose of profit and imposition — vitiated by the awful example of the 
white people, we are at this day confined to the few traces of their origi- 
nal language, their religion, rites and customs, and a few common tra- 
ditions that may yet with labor be collected, to form our opinions upon. 
The Indian languages in general, are very copious and expressive, consid- 
ering the narrow sphere in which they move; their ideas being few in 
comparison with civilized nations. They have neither cases nor declen- 
sions. Thev have few or no prepositions — they remedy this by affixes 
and suffixes, and their words are invariably the same in both numbers. 

All this, if the writers information be correct, is very similar to the He- 
brew language. He has been informed from good authority, and the same 
is confirmed by a writer well acquainted with the subject, that there is 
no language known in Europe, except the Hebrew, without prepositions; 
that is, in separate and express words. The Indians have all the other 
parts of speech, except as above. They have no comparative or supurla- 
tive degrees of comparison more than the Hebrews. They form the last, 
by some leading vowel of the Divine name of the Great Spirit, added to 
the word. It is observed by some Jewish, as well as Christian interpreters, 
that the several names of God, are often given as ephithets by the He- 
brews to those things which are the greatest, the strongest, and the best 
of their kind, as ruach elohiu, a mighty wind. — i vol. Stackhouse's Histo- 
ry of the Bible, page 8, in a note. Both languages are rhetorical, nerv- 
ou s and emphatical. Those public speeches of the Indians, that the wri- 
ter of these memoirs has heard or read, have been oratorical and adorned 
with strong metaphors in correct language, and greatly abound in allego- 
ry. About the year 1648, the governor of New York, sent an accredited 



langiagk of tiik amkrican Indian 



agent to the Onondagos, on a dispute thai w as likely to arise with the 
French. The agent (one Arnold) behaved himself very haughtily 
toward the Indians, at delivering Jlis commission. One of the chiefs then 
answered him in a strain of Indian eloquence, in which he said among 
other things, "I have two arms — 1 extend the one towards Montreal, 
there to support the tree of peace; and the other towards Corlaer, (the 
governor of New York) who has long been my brother. Ononthis (the 
governor of Canada) has been these ten years my father. Corlaer has 
long been my brother, with my own good will, but neither the one or 
the other is my master. He who made the world, gave me this land I 
possess. I am free. I respect them both; but no man has a right to com- 
mand me. and none ought to take amiss, my endeavoring all lean, that 
this land should not be troubled. To conclude, I can no longer delay re- 
paring to my father, who has taken the pains to come to my very gate, 
and who has no terms to propose but what are reasonable." — i Wynne's 
History America, 402 — 3. 

At a meeting held with the President, General Washington, in 1790, to 
prevail upon him to relax the terms of a treaty of peace, made with com- 
missioners under the old confederation, relative to an unreasonable cession 
of a large part of their country, which they had been rather persuaded to 
make to the United States, for trie, sake of peace, and which afterwards 
they sincerely repented of, Cornplant,- who had long been a steady friend 
to the United States, in the most perilous part of the revolutionary war, 
delivered a long, persuasive and able speech, which the writer of this 
preserved, and has now before him, and from which are extracted the 
following sentences, as a proof of the above assertion: "Father, when 
your army entered the country of the six nations, we called you the town 
destroyer, and to this day, when your name is*heard, our women look be- 
hind them and turn pale; our children cling close to the necks of 
their mothers; but our counsellors and warriors being men, cannot be 
afraid; but their hearts are grieved by the fears of our women and 
children, and desire that it may be buried so deep as to be heard no 
more. Father, we will not conceal from you, that the Great Spirit and 
not man, has preserved Cornplant from the hands of his own nation. For 
they ask continually, where is the land on which our children and their 



68 



LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



children are to lie down upon? You told us, they say, that a line drawn 
from Pennsylvania to lake Ontario, would mark it forever on the east; 
and a line running from Beaver Creek to Pennsylvania, would mark it on 
the west. But we see that is not so. For first one and then another 
comes and takes it away by order of that people, who you told us, prom- 
ised to secure it to us forever. Cornplant is silent, for he has nothing to 
answer. When the sun goes down, Cornplant opens his heart before 
the Great Spirit; and earlier than the sun appears again upon the hills, 
he gives thanks for his protection during the night, for he feels that 
among men become desperate by the injuries they sustain, it is God only 
that can preserve him. Cornplant loves peace — all he had in store, he 
has given to those who have been robbed by your people, lest they 
should plunder the innocent to repay themselves. 

"'The whole season which others have employed in providing for their 
families, Cornplant has spent in endeavoring to preserve peace, and at 
this moment, his wife and children are lying on the ground, and in want 
of food. His heart is in pain for them; but he perceives that the Great 
Spirit will try his firmness in doing what is right. Father! innocent 
men of our nation are killed one after another, though of our best families; 
but none of your people, who have committed these murders, have been 
punished. |We recollect that you did promise to punish those who 
should kill our people; and we ask, was it intended that your people 
should kill the Senecas, and not only remain unpunished, but be protect- 
ed from the next of kin. Father! these to us are great things. We know 
that you are very strong. We have heard that you are wise,^but we shall 
wait to hear your answer to this, that we may know that you are just." 

Adair records a sentence of a speech of an Indian captain to his com- 
panions, in his oration for war. Near the conclusion of his harangue, he 
told the warriors, he feelingly knew that their guns were burning in their 
hands — their tomahawks were thirsty to drink the blood ot their enemy, 
and their trusty arrows were impatient to be on the w r ing; and lest delay 
should burn their hearts any longer, he gave them the cool refreshing 
word, "join the holy ark," and away to cut off the devoted enemy. 

But a speech made by Logan, a famous Indian chief, about the year 
x 775' was never exceeded by Demosthenes or Cicero. In revenge for a 



LANCHACiL OK T1IK AMKRICAN INDIAN 



murder committed bj s< me unknown [ndians, a party of our people fired 
on ;i canoe loaded w ith women and children, and one man, all of whom 
happened to belong to the family of Logan, who had long been the 
staunch friend of the Americans, and then at perfect r.eacc with them. 
A w ar immediately ensued, and after much blood-shed on both sides, the 
Indians were beat and sued for peace. A treaty w as held, but Logan 
disdainfully refused to be reckoned among the supplicants; but to pre- 
vent any disadvantage from his absence, to his nation, he sent the follow- 
ing talk to be delivered to lord Dunmore at the treaty. "I appeal to any 
w hite man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry, and lie gave 
him not meat — if ever he came cold and naked, and Logan clothed him 
not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained 
idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was his love for the white 
men, that my countrymen pointed to me as they passed and said, Logan 

is the friend of the white man. Colonel the last spring, in cold 

blood, and unprovoken, murdered all the relations of Logan, and not spar- 
ing even my woman and .children. There runs not. a drop of his blood 
in the veins of any living creature. . This called on me for revenge. I 
have sougth it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. 
For my country, 1 rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a 
thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not 
turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not 

one." 

Great allowance must be made for translations into another lansrua2"e, 
especially by illiterate and ignorant interpreters. This destroys the force 
as well as the beauty of the original. 

A writer (Adair) who has the best opportunities to know their lan- 
guage by a residence among them for forty years, has taken great pains to 
sho\y the similarity of the Hebrew with the Indian language, both in their 
roots and general construction; and insists that many of the In- 
dian words/to this day, are purely Hebrew, notwithstanding their expos- 
ure to the loss of it to such a degree, as to make the preservation of it so 
far little less than miraculous. 

Let any one compare the old original Hebrew, spoken with so much 
purity by the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, with that spoken by 



70 LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



the same people on their return, after the comparatively short space of 
seventy years, and he will find that it had become a barbarous mixture of 
the Hebrew and Chaldaic languages so as not to be understood by an 
ancient Hebrew, and in a great measure has coutinued so to this day. We 
say such a consideration will show an almost miraculous intervention of 
Divine Providence, should a clear trace of the original language be dis- 
covered among the natives of our wilderness of this day. "Their words 
and sentences are expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous and bold." 
Father Charlevoix, in his history of Canada, paid more attention to the 
Indian languages than most travellers before him, and indeed he had 
greater opportunities, and was a man of learning and considerable abili- 
ties. He says: "That the Algonquin and Huron languages have, between 
them, that of almost all the savage nations of Canada that we are ac- 
quainted with. Whoever should well understand both might travel with- 
out an interpreter more than fifteen hundred leagues of country, and 
make himself understood by an hundred different nations who have each 
their peculiar tongue. The Algonquin especially has a vast extent. It 
begins at Acadia and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and takes a compass of 
twelve hundred leagues, twining from the south-east by the north, to the 
south-west. They say also that the Wolf Nation, or the Mohegans, and 
the greater part of the Indians of New England and Virginia, speak the 
Algonquin dialects. The Huron language has a copiousness, an energy 
and a sublimity, perhaps not to be found in any of the finest languages 
we know of; and those whose native tongue it is, though now but a 
handful of men, have such an elevation of soul, as agrees much better 
with the majesty of their language, than with the state to which they are 
reduced. Some have fancied they have a similarity with the Hebrew, 
others have thought it had the same origin with the Greek." "The 
Algonquin language has not so much force as the Huron; but has more 
sweetness and elegance. Both have a richness of expression, a variety 
of turns, a propriety of terms, a regularity which astonishes — but what is 
more surprising, is, that among these barbarians, who never study to 
speak well, and who never had the use of writing, there is never introduc- 
ed a bad word, an improper term or a vicious construction. And even 
their children preserve all the purity of the language in their common 



LAXGIAGE OF THE AM ICR IC AX INDIAN'. 



7 1 



discourse. On the other hand, the manner in which they animate all they 
sav leaves no room to doubt their comprehending all the worth of their 
expressions, and all the beauty of their language." 

Mr. Colden, who wrote the History of the Wars of the Five Nations, 
about the year 1750, and was a man of considerable note, speaking of the 
language of those nations says: "They are very nice in their expressions, 
and that a tew of them are so far master of their language as never to 
offend the ears of their Indian auditory by an unpolite expression. They 
have, it seems, a certain urbanity or atticism in their language of which 
the common ears are very sensible, though only their great speakers at- 
tain to it. They are so given to speech-making that their common com- 
pliments to any person they respect, at meeting or parting, are made in 
harangues. Thev have a few radical words, but they compound them 
without end. By this their language becomes sufficiently copious, and 
leaves room for a good deal of art to please the delicate ear. Their lan- 
guage abounds with gutturals and strong aspirations, which make it very 
sonorous and bold. Their speech abounds with metaphors, after the 
manner of the eastern nations.'' It should be noted that Mr. Colden, 
though a sensible man and an excellent character, could not speak their 
language, and not having any considerable communication with them, 
took his information from others. 

The late Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards, of Connecticut, son of the late 
President Edwards, who was a man of great celebrity, as a well read, 
pious divine, and of considerable erudition, was intimately associated 
with the Indians at Stockbridge, of the Mohegan tribe in that State from 
the age of six years. He understood their language equally with his 
mother tongue. He also had studied that of the Mohawks, having resid- 
ed in their nation about six months for.that purpose. He informs us that 
the name Mohegan is a corruption of Mukkekaneaw, arising from the 
English pronunciation. This is a very common thing, and occasions 
much confusion, and great difficulties, in tracing the language of the dif- 
ferent tribes. For we have not only to contend with a different pronun- 
ciation of the English and French, but the corruption and ignorance of 
interpreters and traders, especially in an early day; and also the different 
modes of writing the same word by different people, arising from their 



12 



LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



different comprehensions of the word as pronounced by the Indians.* 
As, for instance, in the same words by the English and French: 
English . French . 

Owenagunges. Abenaguies. 

Maques. Aniez. 

Odistastagheks. Mascoaties. 

Makihander. Mourigan. 

Oneydoes. Oneyonts. 

Utawawas. Outawies. 

Todericks. Tateras. 

Satana's Shaononons. 
The Mohegan language was spoken by all the various tribes of New 
England. Many of the tribes had a different dialect, but the language 
was radically the same. -Mr. Elliot, called the Indian apostle, was among 
the first settlers of Massachusetts, and died in 1691, translated the Bible 
into Indian, which is found to be in a particular dialect of the Mohegan 
language. Dr. Edwards says it appears to be much more extensive than 
any other language in North America. The language of the Delawares, 
in Pennsylvania; of the Penobscots, bordering on Nova Scotia; of the In- 
dians of St. Francis, in Canada; of the Shawanese, on the Ohio; and of 
the Chippewas, at the westward of lake Huron, were all radically the 
same with the Mohegan. The same is said of the Ottowas, Nanticokes, 
Munsees, Menomonies, Messisagas, Saukies, Ottagaumies, Kilkstmoes, 
Nipegons, Algonquins, Winnebagd£s, &c. 

Dr. Edwards asserts that for the pronouns common in other languages 
they express the pronouns both- substantive and adjective, by affixes or 
letters, or syllables added at the beginnings or ends, or both, of their 
nouns. In this particular, the structure of their language coincides with 
that of the Hebrews, in an instance in which the Hebrew differs from all 
the languages of Europe, ancient and modern, with this difference, the 
Hebrews join the affixes to the end of the words, whereas the Indians, 
in pronouns of the singular number, prefix the letter or syllable; but in 



*The different sounds given by the different tribes to the same letters, is also a source of difficulty. Those 
who often lie* the letter a, where the sound is ob, so that owoh is need in the Mohegan where a or au 
it used in other languages, as Mociuoh for Eauvuah, a bear. The sound of these two are alike, when spoken 
by an Indian. The final it «eT»r sounded in any word but a monosyllable, 



L AN( i A(»E OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



the plural number they add others as suffixes. Als > a^ the word is in- 
creased the} change and transpose the vowels, as in tmohhecan^ an hatch- 
ct; ndumhecan, mv hatchet; the o is changed into //. and transposed after 
the manner of the Hebrews; likewise, in some instances, the t is changed 
into </. 

Besides what has been observed concerning prefixes and suffixes, there 
is a remarkable analogy, says Dr. Edwards, between some words of the 
Mohegan language, and the corresponding words in the Hebrew. In the 
Mohegan niah is I. In Hebrew it is an/, which is the two syllables of 
niah transposed. Keah, thou or thee. The Hebrews use ka the suffix. 
Uivoh. is this man, or this thing; very analagous to the hn, or huah, 
ipse Necaunuh is we; in Hebrew it is naehnu or anachnu. In Hebrew 
ni is the suffix for me, or the first person. In the Mohegan n or ne, is 
prefixed to denote the first person, as nmeetsch, or» n/tneetscli, I eat. In 
Hebrew k or ka is the suffix for the second person, and is indifferently 
either a pronoun, substantive or adjective. A^or ka, has the same use in 
the Mohegan language as kmeetseh or kameetseh, thou eatest. Knish, thy 
hand. In Hebrew the van and the letter u and hu, are the suffixes for he 
or them. In the Indian the same is expressed u cr 7(~v. and by 00. as in 
uduhwhunnw, I love him. Pumissoo, he walketh. In Hebrew, the 
suffix to express our or us, is nu. In Mohegan, it is nuh, as noghnuh, our 
father. Nmeetschnuh, we eat, cV:c. 

To elucidate this subject still farther, a list ot a few words in the differ- 
ent Indian dialects shall be added, with the same words in Hebrew and 
Chaldaick. 



English. 

His wife. 
My wife. 
Come hither. 

The heavens. 
Jehovah. 
Woman. 
Man or chief. 



Charibbee. 

Liana 

Yene-noii. 

Hace-yete. 

Chemim. 
Jocanna. 
Ishto. 
Ish. 



Creeks. 



Mohegan. 
and Northern 
languages. 



Y-he-ho-wah. 
Ishte 



Hebrew. 

Li hene. 
I lene herrani. 
Aca-ati (Sama- 
ritan. 
Shemim. 
Jehova. 
Ishto. 
Ish. 



74 LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



English. 



Charibbee. 



Creeks. 



Thou or thee. 
This man. 
We 

Assembly or Kurbet. 

walled house. 
Necklace or Enca. 

collar. 

My necklace. Yene kali. 

Wood. Hue. 

My skin Nora. 

I am sick. Nane guaete. 

Good be to you.Halea tibou. 

To blow. Phoubac. 

Roof of the Toubana ora. 
house. 

Go thy way. 

Eat. 

To eat. 

The nose- 
Give me nour- 
ishment.* 

The great first 
cause. 

Praise the first 
cause. 

Father. 

Now, the pres 
ent time. 



Bayou boorkaa. 
Baika. 
Aika. 
Nichiri. 
Natoni boman. 



Mohegan, 
and Northern 
languages . 

Niah. 



Keah. 

Uwoh. 

Necaunuh. 



Ye hewah. 



Halleluwah, 



Abba 
Na. 



Hebrew. 

Ani, the 2d syl- 
lable transpos- 
ed as ahni. 

Ka. 

Huah. 

Nachnu. 

Guir, or gra bit. 

Ong. 

Vongali. 

Oa (Chaldaic). 

Ourni. ' 

Nanceheti. 

Ye hali ettuboa. 

Phouhe. 

Debona our. 

Boua bouak. 
Bge Chaldiac. 
Akl do. 
Neheri. 
Natoui bamen. 

lehova. 

Hallelujah. 

Abta. 
Na. 



♦Edward's West Indie». 



LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



7T> 



English. 
Very hot or 

bitter upon 

me. 
To pray. 
The hind parts 
One who kills 

another 

The war name 
who- kills a 
rambling en- 
emy. 

Canaan. 

Wife. 

Winter. 

Another name 
for God. 

Do. 



Arrarat, a high 
mountain. 



Creeks. 
I [eru, hara or 
hala. 

Phale. 
Kesh. 

Abe, derived 
from Abele 
Griif. 

Noabe, com- 
pounded of 
Noah & Abe. 

Kenaai. 
Awah. 
Kora. 
Ale. 



Iennois.* 



Indians of 
Penobscot. 
Arrarat, a high 
mountain. 



Hebrew. 
I lara hara. 



Phalac. 

Kish. 

Abel. 



Canaan. 
Eve or eweh. 
Cora. 

Ale or alohim. 
Iannon.f 



Arrarat, a high 
mountain. 



As the writer of this does not understand either the Hebrew or Indian 
languages, so as to be a judge of their true idioms or spelling, he would 
not carry his comparisons of one language with another too far. Yet he 
cannot well avoid mentioning, merely as a matter of curiosity, that the 
Mohawks, in confederacy with the other Five Nations, as subsisting at 
the first arrival of the Europeans in America, were considered as the law- 
givers, or the interpreters of duty to the other tribes. Nay, tjiis was so 
great that all the tribes paid obedience to their advice. They considered 
themselves as supreme, or first among the rest. Mr. Colden says that he 
has been told by old men in New England that when their Indians were 



*Barlow. 

tLiterally ha shall he called a son.— Christian ObserTer of June, 184S, ». M9. 



76 LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



at war with the Mohawks, as soon as one appeared their Indians raise 
a cry from hill to hill, a Mohawk! a Mohawk! Upon which all fled like 
sheep before a wolf, without attempting to make the least resistance. 
And that all the nations around them, have for many years, entirely 
submitted to their advice, and pay them a yearly tribute of wampum. 
The tributary nations dare not make war or peace without the consent 
of the Mohawks. Mr. Golden has given a speech of the Mohawks, in 
answer to one from the governor of Virginia, complaining of the other 
confederate nations, which shows the Mohawks' superiority over them, 
and the mode in which they correct their misdoings. Now it seems very 
remarkable, that the Hebrew word Mhhokek spelled so much like the 
Indian word, means a law-giver, (or legese inter fires) or a superior. 

Blind chance could not have directed so great a number of remote and 
warring savage nations to fix on, and unite in so nice a religious standard 
of speech, and even grammatical construction of language, where there 
was no knowledge of letters or syntax. For instance A, oo EA, is a 
strong religious Indian emblem, signifying I climb, ascend, or remove to 
another place of residence. It points to A-no~wah, the first person sin- 
gular, and Oca, or Yak, He, Wak, and implies putting themselves under 
the Divine patronage. The beginning, of that most sacred symbol, is by 
studious skill and a thorough knowledge of the power of letters, placed 
twice to prevent them from being applied to the sacred name for vain 
purposes or created things. 

Though they have lost the true meaning of their religious emblems, ex- 
cept what a few of the more intelligent traders revive in the retentive 
memories of the old inquisitive magi, or beloved man; yet tradition directs 
them to apply them properly. They use many plain religious emblems 
of the Divine name, as Y, 0. He, Wah, Yah and Ale, and these are the 
roots of a prodigious number of words, through their various dialects. 
It is worthy of remembrance that two Indians, who belong to far distant 
nations, without the knowledge of each other's language, except from the 
general idiom, will intelligibly converse together and contract engage- 
ments, without any interpreter, in such a surprising manner as is scarcely 
credible. In like manner we read of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob traveling 
from country to country, from Chaldea into Palestine, when inhabited by 



LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



77 



various different nations — thence into Egypt and back again. Making 
engagements and treating with citizens wherever they went. Hut we 
never read of any difficulty of being understood, or their using an inter- 
preter. 

The Indians generally express themselves with great vehemence and 
short pauses, in their public speeches. Their periods are well turned, 
and very sonorous and harmonious. Their words are specially chosen, 
and well disposed, with great care and knowledge of their subject and 
language, to show the being, power and agency of the Great Spirit in all 
that concerns them. 

To speak in general terms, their language in their roots, idiom and par- 
ticular construction, appears to have the whole genius of the Hebrew, 
and what is very remarkable, and well worthy of serious observation, has 
most of the peculiarities of that language, especially those in which it 
differs from most other languages; and "Often, doth in letters and signi- 
fication, synonimous with the Hebrew lansfuasfe." Thev call the lio htnincr 
and thunder eloha. and its rumbling noise row ah, which may not, im- 
properly be deduced from the Hebrew word ruach, a name of the third 
person in the Holy Trinity, originally signifying "The air in motion, or a 
rushing wind.'' — Faber. 

The Indian compounded words are generally pretty long, but those 
that are radical or simple are mostly short; very few, if any of them ex- 
ceeding three or four syllables. And, as their dialects are guttural, every 
word contains some consonants, and these are the essential characteris- 
tic of the language. Where they deviate from this rule it is by religious 
emblems, which obviously proceeds from the great regard they pay to the 
names of the Deity, especially to the great four lettered, Divine, essential 
name, by usin^ the letters it contains, and the vowels it was originally 
pronounced with, to convey a virtuous idea; or by doubling or transpos- 
ing them, to signify the contrary. In this all the Indian nations agree. 
And as this general custom must proceed from one primary cause, it seems 
to assure us, that these people were not in a savage state when thev first 
separated, and varied their dialects with so much religious care and ex- 
act art. 

Souard, in his Melanges de Literature, or Literary Miscellanies, speak- 



78 



LANGUAGE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 



ing of the Indians of Guiana, observes: "On the authority of a learned 
Jew, Isaac Nasci, residing at Surinam, we are informed that the language 
of those Indians, which he calls the Galibe dialect, and which is common 
to all the tribes of Guiana, is soft and agreeable to the ear, abounding in 
vowels and synonyms, and possessing a syntax as regular as it would have 
been if established by an academy. This Jew says that all the substan- 
tives are Hebrew. The word expressive of the soul in each language 
means breath. They have the same word in Hebrew to denominate God 
which means Master or Lord." 

It is said there are but two mother tongues among the Northern In- 
dians, and extending thence to the Mississippi, the Huron and Algonquin, 
and there is not more difference between these than between the Norman 
and French. Dr. Edwards asserts that the language of the Delawares, in 
Pennsylvania; of the Penobscots, bordering on Nova Scotia; of the In- 
dians of St. Francis, in Canada; of the Shawanese, on the Ohio; of the 
Chippewas, to the westward of lake Huron; of the Ottawas, Nanticokes, 
Munsees, Minoniones, Messinagues, Saasskies, Ottagamies, Killestinoes, 
Mipegoes, Algonquins,Winnebagoes, and of the several tribes in New 
England are radically the same, and the variations between them are to 
be accounted for from their want of letters and communication. Much 
stress may be laid on Dr. Edwards' opinion. He was a man of strict in- 
tegrity, and great piety. He had a liberal education; was greatly im- 
proved in the Indian languages, which he habituated himself to from 
early life, having lived long among the Indians. 




_^CA2 RECEIVED BY THEIR NATIONS.^ 




r r S THE Indian nations have not the assistance afforded by the 
means of writing and reading, they are obliged to have re- 
course to tradition, as Du Pratz, 2 vol. 169, has justly ob- 
served, to preserve the remembrance of remarkable trans- 
actions or historical facts, and this tradition cannot be pre- 
served, but by frequent repetitions; consequently many of their young 
men are often employed in hearkening to the old and beloved men, nar- 
rating the history of their ancestors, which has thus been transmitted to 
them from generation. In order to preserve them pure and incorrupt, 
they are careful not to deliver them indifferently to all their young peo- 
ple, but only to those young men of whom they have the best opinion. 
They hold it is a certain fact, as delivered down from their ancestors, 
that their forefathers, in very remote ages, came from a far distant coun- 
try, by way of the west, where all the people were of one color, and 
that in process of time they moved eastward to their present settlements. 

This tradition is corroborated by a current report among them, related 
by the old Cliickkasah Indians to our traders, that now about 100 year 
ago, there came from Mexico, some of the old Cliickkasah nation, or as 
the Spaniards called them Chichemicas, in quest of their brethren, as far 



80 



INDIAN TRAIVTIONS. 



north as the Aquahfah nation, above one hundred and thirty miles 
above Natchez, on the south-east side of the Mississippi river; but through 
French policy they were either killed or sent back, so as to prevent their 
opening a brotherly intercourse with them, as they had proposed. 
It is also said that the Nauatalcas believe that they dwelt in another re- 
gion before they settled in Mexico. That their forefathers wandered 
eight.years in search of it, through a strict obedience to the commands of 
the Great Spirit; who ordered them to go in quest of new lands, that had 
such particular marks as were made known to them, and they punctually 
obeyed the Divine mandate, and by that means found out and settled the 
fertile country of Mexico. 

Our southern Indians have also a tradition among them which they firm- 
ly believe: That of old time, their ancestors lived beyond a great river. 
That nine parts out of ten of their nation passed over the river, but the re- 
mainder refused and stayed behind. That they had a king when they 
lived far in the West, who left two sons. That one of them with a num- 
ber of his people, traveled a great way for man}' years, till they came to 
Delaware river and settled there. That some years agro, the kins: of the 
country from which they had emigrated sent a party in search of them. 
This was at the time the French were in possession of the country on the 
river Alleghaney. That after seeking six vears, thev found an Indian 
who led them to the Delaware towns, where they staid one year. That the 
French sent a white man with them on their return, to bring back an ac- 
count of their country, but they have never been heard of since. 

It is said among their principal, or beloved men, that they have it hand- 
ed down from their ancestors, that the book which the white people have 
was once theirs. That while they had it they prospered exceedingly; but 
that the white people bought it of them, and learned many things from it; 
while the Indians lost their credit, offended the Great Spirit, and suffered 
exceedingly from the neighboring nations. That the Great Spirit 
took pity on them and directed them to this country. That on- their 
way they came to a great river which they could not pass, when God 
dried up the waters and they passed over dry shod. They also say that 
the r forefathers were possessed ol an extraordinary Divine Spirit, by 
which they foretold future events, and controlled the common course of 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 



81 



nature, and this they transmitted to their offspring on condition of their 
o 1 c\ ins the acred laws. That they did by these me; ni bringdown show- 
ers of plenty on the dear people. But that this power, for a long time 
past, had entirely ceased. 

The reverend gentleman mentioned in the introduction, who had taken 
so much pains in the year 1764 or 5, to travel far westward, to find Indi- 
ans who had never seen a white man, informed the writer of these me- 
moirs, that far to the northwest of the Ohio, he attended a party of Indi- 
ans to a treaty, with Indians from the west of thajMississippi. Here he 
found the people he was in search of—- he conversed with their beloved 
man who had never before seen a white man by the assistance of three 
grades of interpreters. The Indian informed him that one of their most 
ancient traditions was: That a great while ago they had a common father 
who lived towards the rising of the sun, and governed the whole world. 
That all the white people's heads were under his feet. That he had 
twelve sons, by whom he administered his government. That his au- 
thority was derived from the Great Spirit, by virtue of some special gift 
from Him. That the twelve sons behaved very bad and tyranized over 
the people, abusing their power to a great degree, so as to offend the 
Great Spirit exceedinglv. That he being thus angry with them, suffered 
the white people to introduce spirituous liquors among them, made them 
drunk, stole the special gift of the Great Spirit from them, and by this 
means usurped the power over them, and ever since the Indians' heads 
were under the white people's feet. But that they also had a tradition 
that the time would come, when the Indians would regain the gift of the 
Great Spirit from the white people, and with it their ancient power, 
when the white people's heads would again be under the Indians' feet. 

Mr. McKenziein his History of the Fur Trade, and his journey through 

North America, bv the lakes, to the South Sea, in the year , says: 

"That the Indians informed him that they had a tradition among them 
that they originally came from another country inhabited by wicked peo- 
ple, and had traversed a great lake which was narrow, shallow, and full 
of islands, where they had suffered great hardships and much misery, it 
being always winter,with ice and deep snows — at a place they called Cop- 
per-mine River, where they made the first land, the ground was covered 



82 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 



with copper, over which a body of earth had since been collected to the 
depth of a man's height. They believed also that in ancient times their 
ancestors had lived till their feet were worn out with walking- and their 
throats with eating. They described a deluge, when the waters spread 
over the whole earth, excepting the highest mountain, on the top of 
which they were preserved. They also believed in a future judgment." 
McKenzie's history, page 113. 

The Indians to the eastward say that previous to the white people com- 
ing into this country, tb#ir ancestors were in the habit of using circum- 
cision, but latterly, not being able to assign any reason for so strange a 
practice, their young people insisted on its being abolished. 

McKenzie says the same of the, Indians he saw on his route, even at 
this day. — History, page 34. Speaking of the nations of the Slave and 
Dog-rib Indians, very far to the northwest, he says: "Whether circumcis- 
ion be practiced among them, I cannot pretend to say. but the appearance 
of it was general among those I saw\" 

The Dog-rib Indians live about two or three hundred miles from the 
straits of Kamschatka. 

Dr. Beatty says in his journal of a visit he paid to the Indians on the 
Ohio, about 120 years ago, that an old Christian Indian informed him 
that an old uncle of his who died about the year 172S, related to him sev- 
eral customs and traditions of former times; and among others, that cir- 
cumcision was practiced among the Indians long ago, but their young 
men made a mock at it, brought it into disrepute, and so it came to be 
disused. Journal, page 89. The same Indian said that one tradition 
they had was: That once the waters had overflowed all the land, and 
drowned all the people then living, except a few, who made a great ca- 
noe and were saved in it. — Page 90. That while they were building it 
they lost their language, and could not understand oneanother. That, 
while one, perhaps called for a stick, another brought him a stone, &c. &c. 
And from that time the Indians began to speak different languages. 

Father Charlevoix, the French historian, informs us that the Hurons 
and Lo juois, in that early day, had a tradition among them that the first 
woman came from heaven and had twins, and that the elder killed the 
younger. 



INDIA N TKAD1TIONS. 



83 



In an account published in the year by a Dutch minister of the 

Gospel in New York, giving an account of the Mohawks, he says: An 
old woman came to my house and told the family that her forefathers 
had told her that the Great Spirit once went out walking with his broth- 
er, and that a dispute arose between them, and the Great Spirit killed his 
brother. " This is plainly a confusion of the story of Cain and Abel. It 
is most likely from the ignorance of the minister in the idiom of the In- 
dian language, misconstruing, Cain being represented as a great man, 
for the Great Spirit. Many mistakes of this kind are frequently made. 

Mr. Adair, who has written the History of the Indians; and who de- 
serves great credit for his industry and improving the very great and un- 
common opportunities he enjoyed, tells us that the southern Indians have 
a tradition, that when they left their own native land, they brought with 
them a sanctified rod, by order of an oracle, which they fixed every night 
in the ground ; and were to remove from place to place on this continent, 
towards the rising of the sun, till it budded in one night's time. That they 
obeyed the sacred oracle, and the miracle at last took place, after they arriv- 
ed on this side of the Mississippi, on the present land they possess. This 
was the sole cause of their settling here — of fighting so firmly for their 
reputed holy land and holy things — that they may be buried with their 
beloved forefathers. 

This seems to be taken for Aaron's rod. 

Col. James Smith, in his Journal of Events, that happened while he was 
prisoner with the Caughnewaga Indians, from 1755 to 1759, says: "Thev 
have a tradition that in the beginning of this continent, the angels or 
heavenly inhabitants, as they call them, frequently visited the people, and 
talked with their forefathers, and gave direction how to pray, and how to 
appease the Great Being, when He was offended. They told them they 
were to offer sacrifice, burn tobacco, buffalo's and deer's bones, &c, &c." 
—Page 79. 

The Ottawas say: "That there are two Great Beings that rule and gov- 
ern the universe, who are at war with each other; the one they call Mane- 
to, and the other Matchemaneto. They say that Maneto is all kindness 
and love, and the other is an evil spirit that delights in doing mischief. 
Some say that they are equal in power; others say that Maneto is the first 



84 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 



great cause, and therefore must be all powerful and supreme, and ought 
to be adored and worshipped; Matchemaneto ought to be rejected and 
despised." "Some of the Wyandots and Caughnewagas profess to be 
Roman Catholics ; but even these retain many of the notions of their ances- 
tors. Those who reject the Roman Catholic religion, hold that there is 
one great first cause, whom they call Owaheeyo, that rules and governs 
the universe, and takes care of all his creatures, rational and irrational, 
and gives them food in due season, and hears the prayers of all those 
who call upon Him; therefore it is but just and reasonable to offer sacri- 
fice to this Great Being and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. 
But they widely differ in what is pleasing or displeasing to this Great 
Being. Some hold that following nature or their own propensities is the 
way to happiness. Others reject this ojDinion altogether, and say that 
following their own propensities in this manner is neither the means of 
happiness, or the way to please the Deity. My friend, Tecaughretanego, 
said our happiness depends on our using our reason, in order to suppress 
these evil dispositions; but when our propensities neither lead us to injure 
ourselves or others, we may with safety indulge them, or even pursue 
them as the means of happiness." — Page 80. 

Can any man read this short account of Indian traditions, drawn from the 
tribes of various nations, from the West to the East, and from the South 
to the North, wholly separated from each other, written by different au- 
thors of the best characters, both for knowledge and integrity, possessing 
the best means of information, at various and distant times, without any 
possible communication with each other, and in one instance from occular 
and sensible demonstration, written on the spot "n several instances, 
with the relators before them, and yet suppose all this is either the effect 
of chance, accident or design, from a love of the marvelous or a premedi- 
tated intention of deceiving, and thereby ruining their own well establish- 
ed reputations? ,'■ 

Charlevoix was a clergyman of character, who was w r ith the Indians 
some years, and traveled from Canada to the Mississippi in that early 
day. 

Adair lived forty years entirely domesticated with the southern Indians, 
and was a man of great learning and observation. Just before the revo- 



[NDIAN TRADITIONS. 



85 



lutionarv war he brought bis manuscript to Elizabethtown. New Jersey, 
to William Livingston, Esq. (a neighbor of the writer) to have it examin- 
ed and corrected, which was prevented by troubles of a political nature, 
just breaking out. The Rev. Mr.Brainerd was a man of remarkable pie- 
tv, and a missionary with the Crosweek Indians to his death. Dr. Ed- 
wards was eminent tor his piety and learning, and was intimately ac- 
quainted with the Indians from his youth. Dr. Beatty was a clergyman of 
note and established character. Bartram was a man well known to the 
writer, and traveled the country of the southern Indians as a botanist, and 
was a man of considerable discernment, and had great means of knowl- 
edge; and McKenzie, in the employment of the Northwest Company, an 
old trader, and the first adventurous explorer of the country, from the 
lake of the woods* to the Southern ocean. 

It is now asked, can any one carefully and with deep reflection consid- 
er and compare these traditions with the history of the Ten Tribes of 
Israel, and the late discoveries of the Russians, Capt. Cook and others, in 
and about the peninsula of Kamschatka and the northeast coast of Asia 
and the opposite shore of America, of which little was before known by 
any civilized nation, in favor of these wandering nations being descend- 
ed from some oriental nation of the old world, and most probably, all 
things considered, being the lost tribes of Israel. 

Let us look into the late discoveries, and compare them with Indian 
traditions. 

Kamschatka is a large peninsula on the north-east part of Asia. It is a 
mountainous country, lying between fifty-one and sixty-two degrees of 
north latitude, and of course a very cold and frozen climate. No grain 
can be raised there, though some vegetables are. Skins and furs are 
their chief exports. The natives are wild as the country itself, and live 
on fish and sea animals, with their reindeer. The islands in this sea, 
which separate it from the north-west coast of America, are so numerous 
that the existence of an almost continued chain of them between the two 
continents is now rendered extremely probable. The principal of them 
are the Kurile islands, those called Behring's and Copper islands, the 
Alentian islands and Fox islands. Copper island which lies in forty-four 
degrees north, and in full sight of Behring's island, has its name from the 



86 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 



great quantity of copper with which its north coast abounds. — Mr. 
Grieve's history. It is washed up by the sea, and covers the shore in 
such abundance that many ships might be loaded with it very easily. 
These islands are subject to continual earthquakes, and abound in sulphur. 
Alaska is one of the most eastwardly islands, and probably is not far from 
the American coast. The snow lies on these islands till March. -and the 
sea is filled with ice in winter. There is little or no wood growing in 
any part of the country, and the inhabitants live in holes dug in the earth. 
Their greatest delicacies are wild lily and other roots and berries, with 
fish and other sea animals. The distance between the most north-east- 
wardly part of Asia and the north-west coast of America is determined 
by the famous navigator, Capt. Cook, not to exceed thirty-nine miles. 
These straits are often filled with ice, even in summer, and frozen in win- 
ter, and by that means might become a safe passage for the most numer- 
ous host to pass over in safety, though these continents had never been 
once joined, or at a much less distance than at present. The sea, from 
the south of Behring's strait to the islands between the two continents, 
is very shallow. From the frequent volcanoes that are continually hap- 
pening, it is probable, not only that there has been a separation of the 
continents at Behring's strait, but that the whole from the island to that 
small opening was once filled up with land; but that it had by the force 
and fury of the waters, perhaps actuated by fire, been totally sunk and 
destroyed, and the islands left in its room. Neither is it probable that 
the first passage of the sea was much smaller than at present, and that it 
is widening yearly, and perhaps many small islands that existed at the 
first separation of the continents have sunk or otherwise been destroyed. 
These changes are manifest in almost every country, 

Monsieur Le Page du Pratz, in the 2 vol. of his history of Louisiana, 
page 120, informs us that being exceedingly desirous to be informed of 
the origin of the Indian natives, made every inquiry in his power, espe- 
cially of the nation of the Natchez, one of the most intelligent among 
them. All he could learn from them was that they came from between 
the north and the sun-setting. Being no way satisfied with this, he sought 
for one who bore the character of one of their wise men. He was hap- 
py enough to find one by the name of Moneachtafie, among the Yazous, a 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 



<S7 



nation about forty leagues from the Natchez. This man was remarkable 
for his solid understanding and elevation of sentiments, and his name 
was given to him bv his nation as expressive of the man — meaning: 
"The killer of pain and fatigue." His i ager desire to see the country from 
whence his forefathers came, he obtained directions and set off. He 
went up the Mississippi, when* he staid a long time to learn the different 
languages of the nations he was to pass through. After long travelling 
he came to the nation of the Otters, and by them was directed on his way 
till he reached the Southern ocean. After being some time with the 
nations on the shores of the great sea, he proposed to proceed on his 
journey, and joined himself to some who inhabited more westwardly on 
the coast. They traveled a great way between the north and the sun- 
setting, when he arrived at the village of his fellow travelers, where 
he found the days long and the nights short. He was here 
advised to give up all thoughts of continuing his journey. They 
told him "That the land extended still a long way in the direction 
aforesaid, after which it ran directly west, and at length was cut by the 
great water from north to south. One of them added that when 
he was young he knew a very old man who had seen that distant 
land before it was eat away by the great w T ater; and when the great 
water was low many rocks still appeared in those parts." Moneachtape 
took their advice and returned home after an absence of five years. 

This account given to Du Pratz, in the year 1720, confirms the idea 
of the narrow passage at Kamschatka, and the probability that the 
continents once joined. 

It is remarkable that the people, especially the Kamschatkians, in their 
marches never go but in Indian file, following one another in the same 
track. Some of the nations in this quarter prick their flesh with small 
punctures with a needle in various shapes, then rub into them char- 
coal, blue liquid or some other color, so as to make the marks become 
indelible, after the manner of the more eastern nations. 

Bishop Lowth in his notes on the 16th verse of the XLIX chapter of 
Isaiah says: "This is certainly an allusion to some practice common among 
the Jews at that time, of making marks on their hands and arms by 
punctures on the skin, with some sort of sign or representation of the 



88 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 



city or temple, to show their affection and zeal for it. They had a method 
of making such punctures indelible by fire or staining, and this art is 
practiced by traveling Jews all over the world at this day." — Vid., also 
his note on chapter XLV, 5th verse. 

Thus it is with our northern Indians, they always go in Indian file, and 
mark their flesh just as above represented. 

The writer of this has seen an aged Christian Indian sachem, of good 
character who sat for his portrait. On stripping his neck to the lower 
part of his breast it appeared that the whole was marked with a deep 
bluish color, in various figures very discernible. On being asked the 
reason of it he answered with a heavy sigh, that it was one of the follies 
of his youth, when he was a great warrior, before his conversion to 
Christianity; and now, says he, I must bear it as a punishment for my 
folly, and carry the marks of it to my grave. 

The people of Siberia made canoes of birch-bark, distended over ribs 
of wood, nicely sewed together. The writer has seen this exactly imi- 
tated by the Indians on the river St. Lawrence, and it is universally the 
case on the lakes. Col. John Smith says: "At length we all embarked in 
a large birch-bark canoe. This vessel was about four feet wide and three 
feet deep, and about thirty-five feet long; and though it could carry k a 
heavy burthen, it was so artfully and curiously constructed that four men 
could carry it several miles, from one landing to another; or from the 
waters of the lake to the waters of the Ohio. At night they carry it on 
the land and invert it, or turn it bottom up and convert it into a dwelling- 
house." 

It also appears from the history of Kamschatka, written by James 
Grieve, that in the late discoveries, the islands which extend from the 
south point of Kamschatka, amount to thirty-one or thirty-two. That 
on these islands are high mountains, and many of them smoking volca- 
noes. That the passages between them, except in one or two instances, 
were but one or two days row, at the time of the author's writing that 
history. They are liable to terrible inundations and earthquakes. 

Th.e following is recorded from Mr. Steller's journal, as recorded in the 
above history: "The main land of America lies parallel with the coast of 
Kamschatka, insomuch that it may reasonably be concluded that these 



* 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 89 

lands once joined, especially at the Techukotskoi Noss, or Cape. 
He ofters four reasons to prove it: ist. The appearance of both coasts, 
which seems to be torn asunder. 2d. Many capes project into the sea 
from thirty to sixty versts. 3d. Many islands are in the sea which 
divides Kamschatka from America. 4th. The situation of the islands, and 
the breadth of the sea. The sea is full of islands, which extend from the 
north-west point of America to the channel of Anianova. One follows 
another, as the Kuruloski islands do at Japan. The American coast at 
sixty degrees of north latitude, is covered with wood; but at Kamschatka, 
which is only fifty-one degrees, there is none for nearly fifty versts from 
the sea, and at sixty-two north one tree is to be found. It is known also 
that the fish enter the rivers on the American coast earlier than they do 
in the rivers of Kamschatka. There are also plenty of raspberries, of a 
large size and fine taste, besides honeysuckles, cranberries and blackber- 
ries in great plentv. In the sea there are seals, sea-beavers, whales and 
dog-fish. In the country and in the rivers on the American coast red 
and black foxes, swans, ducks, quails, plover and ten kinds of birds not 
known in Europe. These particulars may help to answ r er the question, 
w hence was America peopled? though we should grant that the two con- 
tinents never were joined, they lie so near to each other that the possibility 
of the inhabitants of Asia going over to America, especially considering the 
number of islands and the coldness of the climate, cannot be denied. 
From Behring's island on its high mountains, yon can see mountains cov- 
ered with snow, that appear to be capes of the main land of America. 
From all which it appears that here was a probable mean for a people 
passing from Asia to America, either on the main land before a separa- 
tion, by w r hich the continent of America might have been peopled, by 
the tribes of Israel, wandering north-east, and directed by the unseen 
hand of Providence, and thus they entered into a country' where man- 
kind never before dwelt. 

It is not presumed that the Ten Tribes of Israel alone did all this. 
Many of the inhabitants might have gone with them from Tartary or 
Scythia; and particularly the old inhabitants of Damascus, who were 
carried away in the first place by Tiglah Pilnezer, before his conquest of 
.the Israelites, and were their neighbors, and perhaps as much dissatisfied 



90 



INDIAN TRADITIONS. 



with their place of banishment, though for different reasons, as the Israel- 
ites, as well as from Kamschatka, on their way where they were stopped 
some time, as the Egyptians did with the Israelites of old. And, indeed 
it is not improbable, as has before been hinted, that some few of other 
nations, who traded on the sea, might, in so long a course of time, been 
driven by stress of weather, and reached the Atlantic shores at different 
places; but the great body of people settling in North and South America, 
must have originated from the same source. 

Hence it would not be surprising to find among their descendenta a 
mixture of the Asiatic languages, manners, customs and peculiarities. 
Nay, it would appear rather extraordinary and unaccountable if this was 
not so. And if we should find this to be the case, it would greatly cor- 
roborate the fact of their having passed into America from the north-east 
point of Asia, according to the Indian tradition. We, at the present day, 
can hardly conceive of the facility with which these wandering Northern 
nations removed from one part of the country to the other. The Tartars 
at this time, who possess that Northern country, live in tents or covered, 
carts, and wander from place to place in search of pasture, &c. 




GENERAL CHARACTER, 



■AND- 




-OF- 



THE INDIANS 



iE WILL now proceed to consider the general character of 
the people of whom we are treating, as preliminary to 
inauirinsr into their customs and habits. It will be neces- 

J. o 

sary to the full ^understanding of our subject, to premise 
a few particulars. When America was first discovered 
by Columbus, it was comparatively well peopled by some 
hundreds if not thousands of tribes of different nations, from the coast 
opposite Kamschatka to Hudson Bay. Their numbers have not been 
known, neither can they be known at this day. But to form some gener- 
al idea of them, by reasoning on the subject, we will give the numbers of 
the nations that have come to our knowledge at different times:* 




A 

Akamsians 

Arrowhatoes 

Assinnis 

Arathapescoas 

Avoyels 



Abenakias 

Algonquins 

Amelistes 

Assinaboils 

Agones 

Arkansas 



Aiaouez 

Assanpinks 

Aurananeaus 

Appalachos 

Abcccas 

Aquelou-pissasf 



* Pike's Expedition. No. of WarriorB. No. of Women. No. of Children 
t Men who understand and see. 



92 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



Adaics 
Accomacks 
Accotronacks 
Amdustez 
Andaslaka 
Appomotacks 
Alebamons 
Aughquaghcs 
Atacapas 
Attibamegues 
Attatramasues 
B 

Blanes 

Bayoue Ogoulas 
C 

Chatkas* or flat-heads 

C uttata womans 

Chickahomines 

Chickiaes 

Chesapeak 

Connosidagoes 

Chalas 

Capahmakes 

Coroas 

Christinamx 

Chilians 

Canses 

Caddoquues 

Caonites 

Cayugas 

Chippewas, or Anchip- 
awah, 345, 619, 1624 



Conies 

Cherokees 

Chickasaws 

Catawbas 

Chocktaws 

Creeks 

Chouanongesf 

Chiahnessou 

Canzas 

Chitemachas 

Caonetas 

Chatots 

Chacci Cumas, or red 
clay fiish 

Chaouchas or Ouachas 

Cadodaquioux 

Conestogoes 

C an ghn e w agoes 

Chary ennes 

Chappunish, or pierced 
nose Indians 

Cantanyans,on the Alle- 
ghany river 

Ceneseans or Cenis 

Chair:nois 

Coosades 

Cowetas 

Cussutas 

Chukaws 

Colapissas 

Caseitas 

Conchaes 



D 

Delawares 
Dog-rib Indians 
E 

Eries 

F 

Foxes, 400, ^00, 850 
G 

Grand Eaux 
Gakaos 
Ganawoose 
H 

Hassiniengas 

Hurons 

Houmas 

I 

Iroquois 
Illinois 
Ictans 
Icbewas 
loways 



300, 400, 700 
K 

Kecoughtons 
Kaskkasies 
Killistinoes 
Kickapoos 
Kappas 
Kanoatinas 
Kans, 465, 500, 600. 
L 

Linnilinopes 
Lenais 



* They reckoned formerly 25,000 warriors, but it is more likely to be only men. 
-Du Pratz. 

t A numerous nation of 38 villages, below the Missouri, on the Mississippi. 



Said to be quite peaceable. 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AM) HABITS. 93 



Les i nans 


,»U NSC I > 1 1 1 1 1 1 B 


O 


M 


Alencanns 


Omans 


M inatarees 


Al/\l\/*liiiic nr \ 1 * 1 1 1 villi* 

, \ 1 O I > L 1 1 1 1 1 N Ul .11 nil v nil 


Onamkins 


Menowa Kautong, or 


\ I i 1 ( ^ \ \ ' • W 1 lv N 


( )usasons 


people of the Lakes, 


MovlnW'1,'1 ^ 


Oot ponies 


^O^. 6oO, I2(X). 


± \ 1 u 1 1 1 1 e n > 1 ic a 


( )naumanients 


M antes 


AI'ilvilmiN or Alnnliat- 


Oswa^atehes 


Machecous 


ton s 


Orundaes 


Meehimacks 


MullPO 'l IT. 
LVJL U 1 1 C g <* 1 1 0 


Osa cr es 12K2. i7q^. 874- 


Mohecceons 


IV T 1 1 r>lz 1i pi. - -1 11 1 p<s 

_L\JL 11 C lv 1 1 C i\ tl 1 1 It-" 


Oneidas 


Munsees 


VI 1 n 1 c f p n i n v 


On on dadoes 


M anahoacs 


x>± LlllnC \ 0 


Oncatonons 


j.M e H U Kt_i5 


Mini sink 


Ottawas 


JyJ .OlldC 1 wills, uuw J. u^ 


Alaherins 


Onisconsins 


caroras, added to the 


jAJ-clor^l \\ UlulC^ 


Otta°"aniies or Foxes 


Five Nations in 1712. 


AfinfininnppQ 


Outimacs 


Mandans 


ATinpornic 

_L> J. 1 p C g 1 0 


Ousasovs 


Monasiceapanoes 


IVTi 1 1." no - n oo< 
0 


Otters 


jMusquaites 


A.T 1 p It i o*;i m 1 n <i 

J_>_L IV^lllVcl Illicit 


Oni vonths 


iNI onahassanoes 


IVIaqnas 


Othonez 


M assnuigues 


N 


Oumas or Red Nation 


Mohenionsoes 


X > CollclLllllltlo 


Onfe Ogulas or the 


M cxicans 


X> ell Icl£;clHNv_LI.O 


Nation of the Dog 


^lorau^'htacunds 


"NT pni^rpnif^ns 


Oque-Loussas 


Mattap omens 


<;c;;i m nuns 


Oakfuskees 


^Missin a sas^ues 


"\T i~> f t" O n A,' Q 
-l. \ w L LU W cl y 0 


Gnachibes 


M issouns 


~\Ti 11 f 1 rnl - pq 


P 


Mohoes or Mohawks 


Natches 


Pi on as 




Nan tan G^htacunds 


Pequots 


^Mohuccons 


PnKQPlK 
J.\ C Ul^oClla 


Parach uc tans 


Miamis 


Naudowessies 


Prakimines 


Mynonamies, 300, 350, 


Natchitochss 


Ptmitconis 


700. 


Nauatalchas 


Piankishaws 


IMa^coutons, or Nation 


Nacunes or Greens 


Patowomacks 


of Fire. 


Narauwings 


Pissassees 



94c 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



Padoucas 

Pamukies 

Payankatanks 

Powhatan s 

Paspahegas 

Panis, White Panis an< 

Black Panis 
Pouhatamies 
Penobscots 
Panemahas 
Pach Oglouas or the 

Nation of Bread 
Pomptons 

Pawnees, 1993, 3170, 

2060. 
Pemveans 
Panoses 
Pandogas 

a 

Quiocohanses 
Quadodaquees 
R 

Rappahanocks 
Round Heads 
Rancokas 
Ricoras 

S 

Sokulks 
Skillools 

Schactikook or river 
Indians 



Seminoles 

Sitons, 360, 700, 1 100. 
Susquehannas 
Satanas 
Sankihani 
Stegerakies 
Shackakonies 
Secakoonies 
Sivux 
Senecas 
Sapoonies 
Souckelas 
Seakies 
Saaskies 
Shackaxons 
Sacs, 700, 750, 1400. 
Shoshonees or Snake 
Indians 

T 

Teganaties 

Tauxilnanians 

Tauxinentes 

Tentilves 

Tuscaroras 

Twightwies 

Thomez 

Taensas 

Tonicas 

Theoox 

Titones, 200, 3600, 60c 
Tomaroas 



Tapousoas 
Tionontates 

Tsouonthousaas, or the 
Ohio 

Tetaus, 2700, 3000, 
2500. 

V 

Vermilions 
W 

Wapingies 

Wigheocomicoes 

Wianoes 

Wamasqueaks 

Wyanclots 

Webings 

Whonkenties 

Winnebagoes, 450, 

500, 100. 
Washpelong, or people 

of the leaves, 180, 350, 

53°- 

Washpeout, 90, 180, 
270 

Y 

Youghtanunds 
Yazous 

Yanetongs, 900, 1900, 

2799 
Yatassees 

Other bands gener- 
ally, 1704, 2565, 4420 



Some nations divided and settled at a distance from each other, and 
after many years, their languages so changed, as to form different dia- 
lects; as was in our days, the case with the Erigas, on the Ohio, who sepa- 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AM) 1 1 A HITS. 



<)f> 



rated from the Tuscaroras, and formed a distinct dialect in the course of 
a few years. 

Here are one hundred and ninety different nations, each having a king 
or sachem over them, of whom we have some knowledge, though many 
of them are not known; what then must be the number of nations of this 
continent could they all be known? Although we cannot with any pre- 
cision know the number of the nations on the arrival of Columbus, and 
much less the number of souls, yet we may as a matter of curiosity give 
the numbers of individual nations of late years as far as the fact can be 
ascertained — and here our labor will be greatly lessened by a late 
ingenious and well written pamphlet, entitled, "Discourse delivered 
before the New York Historical Society, December 1S11," by the Hon. 
Dewitt Clinton, of the city of New York. To the labor of this gentle- 
man we are greatly indebted for the substance of many of the following 
observations, as well as the elegant manner in which he has communi- 
cated so much information to the world. 

Du Pratz, in his History of Louisiana, ( i vol. 107 — 123) gives an 
account of the single nation of Paducas, lying west by north-west of the 
Missouri, in 1724, which may give a faint idea of the numbers originally 
inhabiting this vast continent. He says: "The nation of the Paducas is 
very numerous; extends almost two hundred leagues, and they have vil- 
lages quite close to the Spaniards in New Mexico." "They are not to be 
considered a wandering nation, though employed in hunting summer 
and winter. — Page 121. Seeing they have large villages, consisting of a 
great number of cabins, which contain very numerous families. These 
are permanent abodes from which one hundred hunters set out at a time 
with their horses, bows and a good stock of arrows. "The village where 
we were, consisted of one hundred an'I forty huts, containing about eight 
hundred warriors, fifteen hundred women, and at least two thousand 
children, some Paducas having four wives." — Page 124. "The natives of 
North America derive their origin from the same country, since at the 
bottom they all have the same manners and usages, and also the same 
manner of speaking and thinking." 

Air. Jefferson, once President of the United States, in his notes on Vir- 
ginia, has also given much useful information to the world on several 



96 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



important subjects relating to America, and among others to the numbers 
of the Indians in that then dominion. Speaking of the Indian confeder- 
acy of the warriors, or rather nations, in that state and its neighborhood, 
called "the Powhatan confederacy, 1 ' says it contained in point of territory, 
as he supposos, of their patrimonial country, ''About three hundred miles 
in length, and one hundred in breadth. That there was about one inhab- 
itant for every square mile, and the proportion of warriors to the whole 
number of inhabitants, was as three in ten, making the number of souls 
about thirty thousand." 

Some writers state the number of their warriors at the first coming of 
the Europeans to Virginia, to be fifteen thousand, and their population at 
fifty thousand. La Houtan says that each village contained about four- 
teen thousand souls; that is. fifteen hundred that bore arms, two thousand 
superanuated men, four thousand women, two thousand maids, and four 
thousand five hundred children. From all which it is but a moderate 
estimate to suppose that there was six hundred thousand fighting men, or 
warriors, on this contiment at its discovery. 

In 1677, Col. Coursey, an agent for Virginia, had a conference with' 
the Five Nations, at Albany. The number of warriors was estimated at 
that time in those nations at the following rate: Mohawks, three hundred; 
Oneidas, two hundred; Onondagoes, three hundred and fifty; Cayugas, 
three hundred; Senecas, one thousand — total, two thousand one hundred 
and fifty, which makes the population about seven thousand two hundred. 
— Vid. Chalmer's Political Annals, 606. 

Smith, in his History of New York, says: "That in 1756, the number 
of fighting men were about twelve hundred.'" Douglass, in his History 
of Massachusetts, says: "That they were about fiifteen hundred in 17 60. 11 

In 1760, Col. Boquet states the whole number of the inhabitants (he 
must mean fighting men) at fifteen hundred and fifty 

Captain Hutchins^ 1768, states them at two thousand one hundred and 
twenty, and Dodge, an Indian trader in 1779, at sixteen hundred, in the 
third year of the American revolutionary war. Many reasons may be 
assigned for the above differences — some may have stayed at home for 
the defense of their towns — some might be absent treating on disputes 
with their neighbors, &c, &c. ' 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



During the above war, in i77^ )- 7, the British had in their service, 
according to the returns of their agent— Mohawks, three hundred; Onei- 
das one hundred and fifty; Tuscaroras, two hundred; Onondagoes, three 
hundred; Cayugas, two hundred and thirty; Senccas, four hundred — in 
the whole, fifteen hundred and eighty. The Americans had about two 
hundred and twenty, making up eighteen hundred warriors, equal to 
about six thousand souls. 

In 17S3, Mr. Kirkland. missionary to the Oneidas, estimated the number 
of the Seneca warriors at six hundred, and the total number of the Six 
Nations at more than four thousand. 

In 1790 he made the whole number of Indian inhabitants then remain- 
ing, including in addition, those who reside on Grand River, in Canada, 
and the Strockbridge and Brothertown Indians, who had lately joined 
them, to be six thousand three hundred and thirty, of which there were 
nineteen hundred warriors. 

In 1794 on a division of an annuity, by order of Congress, to be made 
among the Six Nations, the numbers appeared with considerable cer- 
tainty to be 

In the United States. In the British Government . 



Mohawks 






300 


Oneidas 


628 




460 


Cayugas 


40 






Onondagoes 


450 




760 


Tuscaroras 


400 






Senecas 


1 .780 






Stockbridge and Brother- 








town Indians, about 


2,33° 






The above number of 




• 




British 


760 







But what are these to the southern Indians, and especially those of Mex- 
ico and Peru. I will give one example. Mons. La Page Du Pratz, in his 
History of Louisana, written about the year 1730, assures us: "That the 
nation of the Natchez, from whom the town of that name on the Missis- 
sippi is called, were the most powerful nation in America. — 2 vol 146. 
They extend from the river Manchas or IbervilJ, which is about fifty 



I 



98 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 

leagues from the sea, to the river Wabash, which is about four hundred 
and sixty leagues from the sea, and that they have five hundred sachems 
in the nation." 

He further says: "That the Chatkas or Flat-heads, near the river Pacha 
Ogulas, had twenty-five thousand warriors, but in which number, he sup- 
poses many were reckoned who had but a slight title to that name." — 
Page 140. 

But a short estimate of the length and breadth of different parts of 
America, although not pretended to be perfectly accurate, yet having 
endeavored to keep within bounds, may serve to .answer the end now 



proposed: 





Le7igth in Miles. 


Breadth in Miles 


Old Mexico 


2,000 


600 


New Mexico 


2,000 


1,600 


Louisiana 


1,600 


1,200 


Terra Firma 


1,400 


700 


Amazonia 


1,200 


960 


Peru 


1,800 


500 


Chili 


1,200 


500 


Patagonia 


700 


300 


La Plata 


1,500 


1,000 


Brazil 


2,500 


700 


Thirteen United States 


1,250 


1,040 


Esquimaux 


1,600 


1,200 


Canada 


1,200 


276 


Nova Scotia 


500 


400 


Floridas 


600 


130 


Miles, 


21,050 


11,106 



Besides this immense territory, on all which there are some Indians to 
be found, the country from New Mexico, west to the South seas, which 
is yet in a state of nature, and abounds in Indian nations, must be added 
to the vast amount, as more than equal to all the rest. 

The Indians, by oppression, diseases, wars and ardent spirits, have 
'greatly diminished in numbers, degenerated in their moral character, and 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. !><) 

lost their high standing as warriors, especially those contiguous to our 
settlements. 

" The very ancient men who have witnessed the former glory and 
prosperity of their country, or who have heard from the mouths of their 
ancestors, and particularly from their beloved men, (whose office it is to 
repeat their traditions and laws to the rising generations, with the heroic 
achievements of their forefathers) the former state of their country with 
the great prowess and success of their warriors of old times, they weep 
like infants when they speak of the fallen condition of their nations. 
They derive some consolation from a prophecy of ancient origin and uni- 
versal currency among them, that the man of America will, at some 
future period, regain his future ascendency and expel the man of Europe 
from this Western hemisphere. This flattering and consolatory persua- 
sion has enabled the Seneca and Shawanese prophets to arrest, in some 
tribes, the use of intoxicating liquors, and has given birth, at different 
periods, to attempts for a general confederacy of the Indians of North 
America.'' — Clinton. 

A writer who was present at a dinner given by General Knox, to a 
number of Indians in the year 1786, at New York, says: ''They had come to 
the President on a mission from their nations. The house was on Broad- 
way. A little before dinner two or three of the sachems, with their chief 
or principal man, went into the balcony at the front of the house, the 
drawing room being up stairs, From this they had a view of the city, 
the harbor, Long Island, &c, &c. After remaining there a short time, 
they returned into the room, apparently dejected; but the chief more 
than the rest. General Knox took notice of it, and said to him: 'Brother, 
what has happened to you? You look sorry! Is there anything to dis- ♦ 
tress you?' He answered: 'I'll tell you, brother. I have been looking 
at the beautiful city, the great water, your fine country, and see how 
happy you all are. But then I could not help thinking that this fine 
country and this great water was once ours. Our ancestors lived here; 
they enjoyed it as their own in peace; it was the gift of the Great Spirit 
to them and their children. At last the white people came here in a great 
canoe. They asked only to let them tie it to a tree, lest the water should 
carry it away; we consented. They said some of their people were sick 



100 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS 



and they asked permission to land them and put them under the shade of 
the trees. The ice then came and they could not get away. They then 
begged a piece of land to build wigwams for the winter; we granted it to 
them. They then asked for some corn to keep them from starving, we 
kindly furnished it to them; they promised to go away when the ice was 
gone. When this happened, we told them that they must now go away 
with their big canoe; but they pointed to their big guns around their 
wigwams, and said they would stay there, and we could not make them 
go away. Afterwards more came. They brought spirituous and intox- 
icating liquors with them, of which the Indians became very fond. They 
persuaded us to sell them some land. Finally they drove us back from 
time to time into the wilderness, far from the water, and the fish, and the 
oysters. They have destroyed the game. Our people have wasted away, 
and now we live miserable and wretched, while you are enjoying our fine 
and beautiful country. This makes me sorry, brother! and I can not 
help it. 1 " 

But to proceed, the color of the Indian, generally speaking, was red, 
brown or copper colored, differing according to climate, high and low 
grounds. They are universally attached to their color, and take every 
means in his power to increase it, prefering it to the white. They give a 
name to the white people which is highly contemptuous; it is that of a 
heterogenous animal. Sometimes when they aim at greater severity, that 
of "the accursed people." The hotter or colder the country is where the 
Indians have long resided, the greater proportion have they of white or 
red color; this is asserted by Adair from personal experience. He has 
compared the Shawanoh Indians with the Chickasaw and found them 
much fairer, though their endeavors to cultivate the copper color were 
alike. He thinks the Indian color to be the effect of the climate, art and 
manner of living. Their tradition says, in the country far west from 
which they came, all the people are of one color. Adair has seen a 
white man, who, by his endeavors to change his color, became as deeply 
colored as any Indian in the camp, after he had been in the woods only 
four years. The Indians to the Southward are often of a deeper hue 
than those to the Northward; in a high country they incline to a lighter 
tinge; but then those to the Northward are more ignorant, and less 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



101 



knowing in their traditions, rights and religious customs. The like 
change is not unknown to Europe and Asia. The inhabitants of the 
northern countries, in many instances, are comparatively fairer than those 
of the southern countries. 

In the South the Indians are tall, erect and robust; their limbs are well 
shaped, so as generally to form a perfect human figure. They delight in 
painting themselves, especially with red or vermilion color. They are 
remarkably vain, and suppose themselves the first people on earth. The 
Five Nations called themselves Onguc-honwe, that is men surpassing all 
others, the only beloved people of the Great Spirit, and His peculiar peo- 
ple. But as to their common mode of living they are all great slovens; 
they seldom or ever wash their shirts. 

It is a matter of fact, proved by most historical accounts, that the 
Indians, at our first acquaintance with them, generally manifested them- 
selves kind, hospitable and generous to the Europeans, so long as they 
were treated with humanity; but when they were, from a thirst of gain, 
overreached on every occasion, their friends and relatives treacherously 
entrapped and carried away to be sold as slaves; themselves injuriously 
oppressed, deceived and driven from their lawful and native possessions; 
what ought to have been expected, but inveterate enmity, hereditary ani- 
mosity, and a spirit of perpetual revenge? To whom should be attributed 
the evil passions, cruel practices and vicious habits to which they are now 
changed, but to those who first set them the example; laid the founda- 
tion and then furnished the continual means for propagating and sup- 
porting the evil? 

In a very early day, in the colony of Virginia, the first settlers, by their 
great imprudence, had soured the Indian temper, raised their jealousy, 
and provoked their free and independent spirits, so as to lead them to 
determine on the extirpation of the whole colony — then few, weak and 
divided. The Indians managed their intended attack with so much 
secrecy that they surprised the colonists in every quarter, and destroyed 
near one fourth of them. In their turn the survivors waged a destructive 
war against the Indians, and murdered men, women and children. Dr. 
Robertson says: "Regardless, like the Spaniards, of those principles of 
faith, honor and humanity, w T hich regulate hostilities among civilized 



102 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 

nations and set bounds to their rage, the English deemed everything 
allowable that tended to accomplish their designs. They hunted the 
Indians like wild beasts rather than enemies; and as the pursuit of them 
to their places of retreat in the woods, was both difficult and dangerous, 
they attempted to allure them from their inaccessible fastnesses by offers 
of peace, and promises of oblivion, made with such an artful appearance 
or sincerity, as deceived the crafty Indian chief, and induced the Indians 
to return, in the year 1623, to their former settlements, and resume their 
usual peaceful occupations. The behavior of the two people seemed now 
to be perfectly reversed. The Indians, like men acquainted with the 
principles of integrity and good faith, confided in the reconciliation, and 
lived in absolute security without suspicion of danger, while the English, 
with perfidious craft, were preparing to imitate savages in their revenge 
and cruelty. 

"On the approach of harvest, when an hostile attack would be most 
formidable and fatal, the English fell suddenly on the Indian plantations, 
murdered every person on whom they could lay hold, and drove the rest 
to the woods, where so many perished with hunger that some of the 
tribes nearest to the English were totally extiupated." — History of North 
America, 96 — 97. 

Robertson again, speaking of the war in New England, between Con- 
necticut and Providence, in their first attempt against the Pequod Indi- 
ans, says: "That the Indians had secured their town, which was on a 
rising ground in a swamp, with pallisades. The barking of a dog 
alarmed the Indians. In a moment, however, they started to their arms, 
and, raising the war-cry, prepared to repel the assailants. The English 
forced their way through into the fort or town, and setting fire to the 
huts, which were covered with reeds, the confusion and terror quickly 
became general. Many of the women and children perished in the flame, 
and the warriors endeavoring to escape, were either slain by the English, 
or falling into the hands of the Indian allies, who surrounded the fort at 
a distance, were reserved for a more cruel fate. The English resolved to 
pursue their victory, and hunting the Indians from one place of retreat to 
another, some subsequent encounters were hardly less fatal than the first 
action. In less than three months, the tribe of the Pequods were extir- 



INDIAN CUSTOM S ANT) MAT. ITS. 



1 03 



pated." — Ibid 184—5—6. "Thus the English stained their laurels by 
the use they made of victory. Instead of treating the Pequods 
as an independent people, who made gallant efforts to defend 
the property, the rights and freedom of their nation, they retali- 
ated upon them all the barbarities of American war. Some they 
massacred in cold blood, others they gave up to be tortured by their 
Indian allies, a considerable number they sold as slaves in Bermuda, the 
rest were reduced to servitude among themselves." 

What I am about mentioning may be considered as of little force while 
standing by itself, yet when connected with so many other circumstances 
it is thought worth mentioning. This nation of Pequods were a prin- 
cipal nation of the East, and very naturally reminds one of the similarity 
of the same name in Jeremiah I, 21, where the inhabitants af Pekod are 
particularly mentioned; and also in Ezekiel XXIII, 23. The difference 
in spelling one with a k, and the other with a q, is no uncommon thing. 
The Indian languages being very guttural, the k is generally used where 
an Englishman would use the q; but many of the first names used by the 
English in an early day have been corrected. Sir Walter Raleigh says 
his "First landing in America was at Roanor," which afterwards was 
found to be called, by the Indians, Roanoke. Another trifling observa- 
tion in itself, yet will add to the presumption already mentioned, is the 
name of a point of land on the western part of the Euxine or Black sea, 
mentioned by D'Anville, Nagara. This is the Abydos of the Greeks, (1 
D'Anville. 2S7,) and is much the same with the point in lake Ontario, in 
New York State, well known by the Indian name Niagara. 

But if this character of the Indians, as originally being kind and hos- 
pitable, should be doubted, as I know it will be by many, who think 
themselves well acquainted with them, from being with the present race 
around our settlements, let us go back and hear what idea Christopher 
Columbus formed of them in the veiy beginning of our knowledge of 
them. He must be the very best witness that can de produced on this 
subject. In his account, sent to his royal master and mistress, ot the 
inhabitants, on his first landing in America, he says: "I swear to your 
majesties that there is not a better people in the world than these; more 
affectionate, affable or mild. They love their neighbors as themselves. 



104 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



Their language is the sweetest, the softest and the most cheerful, for they 
always speak smiling." In another instance, a venerable old man 
approached Columbus with great reverence, and presented him with a* 
basket of fruit, and said to him: "You are come into this country with a 
force against which, were we inclined to resist, resistance would be folly. 
We are all, therefore, at your mercy. But if you are men subject to mor- 
ality like ourselves, you cannot be unapprised, that after this life there is 
another, wherein a very different portion is allotted to good and bad men. 
If, therefore, you expect to die, and believe with us, that every one is to 
be rewarded in a future state according to his conduct in the present, you 
will do no hurt to those who do none to you." — Edward's West Indies, 
i vol. 72. 

De las Casas, Bishop of Capia, who spent much time and labor among 
the Indians of New Spain, trying to serve them, says: "I was one of the 
first who went to America. Neither curiosity nor interest prompted me 
to undertake so long and dangerous a voyage. The saving of the souls 
of the heathen was my sole object. Why was I not permitted, even at 
the expense of my blood, to ransom so many thousand souls, who fell 
unhappy victims to avarice and lust. It was said that barbarous execu- 
tions were necessary to punish or check the rebellion of the Americans. 
But to whom was this owing? Did not this people receive the Spaniards,, 
who first came among them, with gentleness and humanity? Did they 
not show more joy, in proportion, in lavishing treasures upon them, than 
the Spaniards did greediness in receiving it? But our avarice was not yet 
satisfied. Though they gave up to us their lands and their riches, we 
would take from them their wives, their children and their liberty. To 
blacken the characters of this unhappy people, their enemies assert that 
they are scarcely human creatures. But it is we who ought to blush for 
having been less men,' and more barbarous than they. They are repre- 
sented as a stupid people, and addicted to vices. But have they not con- 
tracted most of their vices from contact with Christians? But it must be 
granted that the Indians still remain untainted with many vices common 
among Europeans. Such as ambition, blasphemy, swearing, treachery 
and many such monsters, which have not yet taken place among them.. 
They have scarcely any idea of them. All nations are equally free. One 



INDIA N CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



105 



nation lias no right to infringe on the freedom of another. Let ns do unto 
this people as we would have them do unto, us, on a change of circum- 
stances. What a strange method is this of propagating the gospel; that 
holy law of grace, which, trom being slaves to Satan, initiates us into the 
freedom of the children of God." 

The Abbe Clavigero, another Spanish writer, confirms this idea of the 
South Americans. '"We have had intimate conversation," says he, "with 
the Americans; have lived some years in a seminary destined for their 
instruction. Attentively observed their character, their genius, their dis- 
position and manner of thinking; and have besides examined with the 
utmost diligence, their ancient history, their religion, their government, 
their laws and their customs. After such long experience and study of 
them we declare that the mental qualities of the Americans are not in the 
least inferior to those of the Europeans." 

Among the many instances of provocation given to them by the white 
people. Neal, in his History of New England, page 21, savs: "One Hunt, 
an early trader with the Indians of New England, after a prosperous 
trade with the natives, enticed between twenty and thirty of them on 
board his vessel and, contrary to the public faith, clapped them under 
hatches, and took them to Malaga, and sold them to the Spaniards. This 
the remaining Indians resented, by revenging themselves on the next 
English vessel that came on their coast." 

In the year 1620, a sermon was preached at Plymouth, by the Rev. Mr. 
Cushman, from which the following extract is taken, relative to the treat- 
ment they received from the natives: "The Indians are said to be the 
most cruel and treacherous people in all these parts, even like lions, but 
to us they have been like lambs, so kind, so submissive and trusty; as a 
man truly said, many Christians are not so kind or sincere. Though when 
we came first into this country we were few, and many of us very sick, 
and many died by reason of the cold and wet, it being the depth of win- 
ter, and we having no houses or shelter; yet, when there were not six 
able persons among us, and the Indians came daily to us by hundreds, 
with their sachems or kings, and might in one hour have made dispatch 
of us; yet such fear was upon them, that they never offered us the least 
injury in word or deed. And by reason of one Tisquanto, that lives 



106 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



among us, and can speak English, we have daily commerce with their 
kings, and can know what is done or intended towards us among the 
savages." 

The late governor Hutchinson, in his History of New England observes t 
"The natives showed courtesy to the English at their first arrival; 
were hospitable, and made such as would eat their food, welcome to it, 
and readily instructed them in planting and cultivating the Indian corn. 
Some of the English who lost themselves in the woods, and must other- 
wise have perished with famine, they relieved and conducted home." 

Mr. Penn, also, at his first coming amongst them, spoke and wrote of 
them in very high terms, as a kind and benevolent people. 

The history of New Jersey informs us: "For near a century, the 
Indians of that State had all along maintained an intercourse of great cor- 
diality and friendship with the inhabitants, being interspersed among 
them, and frequently receiving meat at their houses, and other marks of 
their good will and esteem " — Smith, page 440. 

Father Charlevoix, who traveled early and for a long time among the 
Indians, from Quebec to New Orleans, and had great opportunities,, 
which he made it his business and study to improve, tells us, speaking of 
the real character of the Indian nations: "With a mien and appear- 
ance altogether savage; and with manners and customs which favor the 
greatest barbarity, they enjoy all the advantages of society. At first view, 
one would imagine them without form of government, laws or subordina- 
tion, and subject to the wildest caprice. Nevertheless, they rarely divi- 
ate from certain maxums andusage§, founded on good sense alone, which 
holds the place of law, and supplies in some sort, the want of legal 
authority. They manifest stability in the engagements they have sol- 
emnly entered upon; patience in affliction as well as submission to what 
they apprehend to be the appointment of Providence; in all this they man- 
ifest a nobleness of soul and constancy of mind, at which we rarely arrive, 
with all our philosophy and religion. They are slaves to neither ambition, 
or interest, the two passions that have so much weakened in us the senti- 
ments of humanity, (which the kind author of nature has engraven 011 
the human heart) and kindled those of covetousness, which are as yet 
generally unknown among them." 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 1<>7 

It is notorious, that they are generally kinder to us, though they despise 
us, than we are to them. There is scarce an instance occurs, but that they 
treat every white man who goes among them, with respect, which is not 
the case from us to them. The same author says: "The nearer view we 
take of our savages, the more we discover in them some valuable quali- 
ties. The chief part of the principles by which they regulate their con- 
duct; the general maxims by which they govern themselves; and the bot- 
tom of their characters have nothing which appears barbarous. The 
ideas, though now quite confused, which they have retained of a first 
Being; the traces, though almost effaced, of a religious worship, which 
they appear to have formerly rendered to the Supreme Deity, and 
the faint marks which we observe, even in their most indifferent actions, 
of an ancient belief and the primitive religion, may bring them more easily 
than we think of into the way of truth, and make their conversion to Chris- 
tianity more easily to be effected, than that of more civilized nations." 

But what surprises exceedingly, in men whose whole outward appear- 
ance proclaims nothing but barbarity, is to see them believe each other, 
with such kindness and regard, that are not to be found among 1 the most 
civilized nations. Doubtless this proceeds in some measure, from the 
words mine and thine, being as yet unknown to these savages. We are 
equally charmed with that natural and unaffected gravity, which reigns in 
all their behavior, in all their actions, and in the greatest part of their 
diversions. Also in the civility and deff erence they show to their equals, 
and the respect of the young people to the aged. And lastly, never to 
see them quarrel among themselves, with those indecent expressions,oaths 
and curses, so common among us; all of which are proofs of good sense and 
a great command of temper.* In short, to make a brief portrait of these 
people, with a savage appearance, manners and customs, which arc 
entirely barbarous, there is observable among them, a social kindness, 
free from almost ail the imperfections which so often disturb the peace of 
society among us. They appear to be without passion; but they do that 
in cold blood, and sometimes through principle, which the most violent 
and unbridled passion produces in those who give no ear to reason. 

* Le Page Du Pratz, saya: "I have studied theso Indians a considerable number of years, and I never 
could learn tbat there ever were any disputes or boxing matches among>ither the boys or men.— 2 vol. 165. 



108 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



They seem to lead the most wretched life in the world, and yet they were 
perhaps, the only happy people on earth, before the objects which so 
work up and seduce us, had excited in them desires which ignorance kept 
in supineness; but which have not as yet (in 1730) made any great rava- 
ges among them. We discover among them a mixture of the fiercest 
and most gentle manners. The imperfections of wild beasts, and the vir- 
tues and qualities of the heart and mind which do the greatest honor to 
human nature. 

Du Pratz, in his History of Louisiana, says that "Upon an acquaint- 
ance with the Indians, he was convinced that it was wrong to denominate 
them savages, as they are capable of making good use of their reason, and 
their sentiments are just. They have a degree of prudence, faithfulness 
and generosity, exceeding that of nations who would be offended at being 
compared with them. No people, says he, are more hospitable and free 
than the Indians. Hence they may be esteemed a happy people, if that 
happiness was not impeded by their passionate fondness for spirituous 
liquors, and the foolish notion they hold, in common with many pro- 
fessing Christians, of gaining reputation and esteem by their prowess in 
war." But to whom do they owe their uncommon attachment to both 
these evils? Is it not to 'the white people who came among them with 
destruction in each hand, while we did but deceive ourselves with the vain 
notion that we were bringing the glad tidings of salvation to them. 
Instead of this, we have possessed an unoffending people with so hor- 
rid an idea of our principles, that among themselves they call us the 
accursed people. And their great numbers, when first discovered, show 
that they had but few wars before we came among them. 

Mr. William Bartram, a gentleman well known in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania, son of the late John Bartram, Esq., so long Botanist to Queen Car- 
oline, of England, before the revolution, in the journal of his travels 
through the Creek country, speaking of the Seminoles or lower Creek 
nation, and of their being then few in number he says: "Yet this hand- 
ful of people possess a vast territory, all East Florida and the greatest part 
of West Florida, which being naturally cut and divided into thousands of 
islets, knolls and eminences, by the innumerable rivers, lakes, swamps, 
savannas and ponds, form so many secure retreats and temporary dwelling 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



!<)<> 



places, that effectually guard them from any sudden invasion or attacks 
of their enemies. And being such a swampy, hammoky country, fur- 
nishes such a plenty and variety of supplies for the nourishment of every 
tori of animal than I can venture to assert that no part of the globe so 
abounds with wild game or creatures fit for the food of man. Thus they 
enjoy a superabundance of the necessaries and conveniences of life with 
the security of person and property, the two great concerns of mankind. 
They seem to be free from want or desires. No cruel enemy to dread; 
nothing to give them disquietude but the gradual encroachments of the 
white people. Thus contented and undisturbed, they appear as blithe 
and free as the birds of the air, and like them as volatile and active, tune- 
ful and vociferous. The visage, action and deportment of a Seminole, 
being the most striking picture of happiness in this life— joy, content- 
ment, lore and friendship without guile or affectation, seem inherent in 
them, or predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them but with 

the last breath of life." 

To exemplify their kindness to strangers, he says that having lost his 
way in traveling through their towns, he was at a stand how to proceed, 
when he observed an Indian man at the door of his habitation, beckoning 
to him, to come to him. Bartram accordingly rode up to him. He cheer- 
fullv welcomed him to his house, took care of his horse, and with the 
most graceful air of respect led him into an airy, cool apartment, where, 
being^seated on cabins, his women brought in a refreshing repast, with a 
pleasant cooling liquor to drink. Then pipes and tobacco. After an 
hour's conversation, and Mr. Bartram informing him of his business, and 
where he was bound, but having lost his way, he did not know how to 
go on. The Indian cheerfully replied that he was pleased that Mr. B. 
had come into their country, where he should meet with friendship and 
protection; and that he would himself lead him into the right path. He 
turned out to be the prince or chief of Whatoga. How long would an 
Indian have rode through our country, before he would have received 
such kindness from a common farmer, much less a chcif magistrate of a 
country? Mr. Bartram adds to the testimony of Father Charlevoix, in 
favor of their good characters among themselves. He says they are just, 
honest, liberal and hospitable to strangers; considerate, loving and affec- 



110 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



tionate to their wives and relations; fond of their children; frugal and 
persevering; charitable and forbearing. He was weeks and months 
among them in their towns, and never observed the least sign of conten- 
tion or wrangling; never saw an instance of an Indian beating his wife, 
or even reproving her in anger. 

Col. John Smith says: "When we had plenty of green corn and roasting 
ears, the hunters became lazy, and spent their time in singing and 
dancing. They appeared to be fulfilling the Scriptures, beyond many of 
those who profess to believe them, in taking no thought for to-morrow, 
but living in love, peace and friendship, without disputes. In this last 
respect they are an example to those who profess Christianity.'- — 
Page 29. 

The first and most cogent article in all their late treaties with the white 
people is: ''That there shall not be any kind of spirituous liquors brought 
or sold in their towns; and the traders allowed but ten gallons for a com- 
pany, which is deemed sufficient to serve them on their journey; and if- 
any of this remains on their arrival, they must spill it on the ground." 
Mr. B. met two young traders running about forty kegs of Jamaica spirits 
into the nation. They were discovered by a party of Creeks, who imme- 
diately struck their tomahawks into every keg, and let the liquor run out, 
without drinking a drop of it. Here was an instance of self-denial, sel- 
dom equaled by white men, for so fond are they of it that had they 
indulged themselves with tasting it, nothing could have prevented i-hem 
from drinking the whole of it. Mr. B. saw a young Indian who was 
present at a scene of mad intemperance and folly, acted by some white 
men in the town. He clapped his hand to his breast, and with a smile 
looking up, as if struck with astonishment, and wrapped in love and ado- 
ration of the Deity, lamented their conduct. 

We have thus endeavored to give some ideas of the Indian character, 
at the first arrival of the Europeans among them, before they were 
debauched and demoralized by an acquaintance with those who pretend 
to be their benefactors, by communicating to them the glad tidings of 
salvation, through Jesus Christ. We have exhibited the testimony of the 
best writers from various parts of the continent, acquainted with very 
different nations, from the South to the North. It is given generally 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND IIAIMTS. 



1 1 1 



in the authors' own words, lest we might be charged with misrepre- 
senting their meaning, by adopting our own language, or putting a gloss 
on theirs; andfour design has been that the reader may be made acquainted 
With the people of whom we treat. We must confess, that we have 
given the fairest part of their character while at home and among their 
friends, though a perfectly just one. 

The objects which engage their attention, and indeed their whole 
souls, are war and hunting. Their haughty tempers will not condescend 
to labor — this they leave to their women. Hence they put on rather a 
solemn character, except when they divert themselves with their princi- 
pal amusements, dancing and gaming. But in war and in opposing the 
enemies of their nation, they are cruel and revengeful. They make war 
with unrelenting fury, on the least unatoned affront, equal to any Euro- 
pean nation whatever. It is their custom and long continued habit. 
They kill and destroy their own species without regret. The warrior is 
the highest object of their ambition. They are bitter in their enmity, 
and to avenge the blood of a kinsman, they will travel hundreds of miles, 
and keep their anger for years, till they are satisfied.* They scalp all the 
slain of their enemies (as many Asiatics did) that they get in their power, 
contrary to the usage of all other savages. f They usually attack their 
enemies with a most hideous and dreadful yelling, so as to make the 
woods ring. Very few of the ablest troops in the world can with- 
stand the horror of it who are strangers to them, and have not before 
been acquainted with this kind of reception. They are kind to women 
and children whom they take prisoners, and are remarkable for their deli- 
cacy in the treatment of the first. To such prisoners as they by certain 
rules doom to death, they are insultingly cruel and ferocious beyond 
imagination; and their women are most ingenious and artful in the science 
of tormenting. All this is mutual, and it is distressing to say, with truth, 
that it is too much like the practice of those who call themselves more 
enlightened people. Had the Indians read Lucan's Pharsalia, (Lib. iii. 
400,) which contains the description of the Massillian Grove of the Greek 

* The murderer shall surely be put to death. The avenger of blood, himself, shall slay the murderer 
when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.— Numbers XXXV. IS, 19, 

t David speaks of the hoary scalp of his enemies. 



112 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



Druids, wherein they would have found every tree reeking with the 
blood of human victims — or had they been actuated by the British 
Druids, "Who indeed seem to have exceeded, if possible, their heathen 
neighbors, in savage ferocity and boundless lust of sacrificed blood, they 
would have, indeed, been able to settle accounts with their white neigh- 
bors. The pages of history tremble to relate the baleful orgies of the 
Druids, which their frantic superstition celebrated, when enclosing men, 
women and children, in one vast wicker image, in the form of a man, 
and filling it with every kind of combustible, they set fire to the huge 
colossus. While the dreadful holocaust was offering to their sanguinary 
gods, the groans and shrieks were drowned amidst the shouts of barbar- 
ous triumph, and the air was rent with the wild dissonance of martial 
music." — i vol. of Indian Antiquities. "Or had the Indians read of the 
Emperor Maximinian putting to death the Thebian legion of six thous- 
and six hundred and sixty-six Christian soldiers, who had served him 
faithfully, because they refused to do sacrifice to the heathen gods, and 
persecute their brother Christians." Cave's Primitive Christians, 331. "Or 
had they been acquainted with the tortures of the martyrs for Christ, for 
many centuries; or the European practice of burning heretics*; 
or had they heard of the Walbenses and Albigenses; of St. Bartholo- 
mew's night, or the Irish massacre. They might be ignorant of the 
bloody torments of the Inquisition, the tortures of Amboyna, or of a 
French Republic baptism, or they may never have been informed of 
the district of La Vendee, of the Convent of Carmes, or the proceedings 
in France on the {2th of August, or of the more than diabolical, cow- 
ardly murder, by the enlightened citizens of Pennsylvania, from the 
■county of Washington, when a whole town of Christian Indians, con- 
sisting of about ninety souls, men, women and children, were butchered 
in cold blood, at Muskingum, in the year 1783; and who had been our 
tried friends during the whole revolutionary war. If the Indians had 
known these facts, and written the history of the civilized white people, 
they might have roused the feelings of a tender conscience in their favor. 

* Will any one again langh at the strong observation of an eminent divine: "That man in a state of nature 
was half devil and half brute?"— Clarke's Com., 131. Who will not adore the' God of heaven withgratitude 
and thanksgiving, for the light of the gospel, which has not only brought life and immortality to light, but 
-wrought so wonderful a change among the present nations of the earth. 



{ 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



1 L3 



But whoever reads the history of the eulogized heroes of ancient days, 
will find them not much hotter, in this respect. Does Achille's behavior 
to Hector's dead body appear less savage or revengeful? Do the Cartha- 
genians or Phoenicians, burning their own children alive in sacrifice, or 
the bloody massacres of the Southern Indians, by the learned and civ- 
ilized Spaniards, claim any great preference in point of humanity and 
the finer feelings of the enlightened sons of science, and of the pretenders 
to religious knowledge? 

But let us come nearer home. Who set them the example of cruelty 
and barbarity, even to those whom they invaded and plundered of their 
property, deprived of their lands, and rendered their whole country a 
scene of horror, confusion and distress? Wynn, in his History of 
America, tells us: "That the New England people, in an early day, as we 
have already seen, made an attack upon the Pequod Indians, and drove 
eight hundred of them, with about two hundred of their women and chil- 
dren, into a swamp — a fog arising, the men escaped, except a few who 
were either killed or wounded. But the helpless women and children 
were obliged to surrender at discretion. The sachem's wife, who some 
time before had saved the Weathersfield maidens, and returned them 
home, was among them. She made two requests which arose from a 
tenderness and virtue not common among savages, ist. That her chas- 
tity might remain unviolated. 2d. That her children might not be taken 
from her. The amiable sweetness of her countenance, and the modest 
dignity of her deportment, were worthy the character she supported for 
innocence and justice, and were sufficient to show the Europeans that 
even barbarous nations sometimes produce instances of heroic virtue. It 
is not said, by the historian, whether her requests were granted or not, 
but that the women and children were dispersed through the neighboring 
colonies, the male infants excepted, who were sent to the Bermudas." — 1 
vol. 66. Indeed, had the Indians, on their part, been able to answer in 
writing, they might have formed a contrast between themselves and their 
mortal enemies, the civilized subjects of Great Britain. They might have 
recapitulated their conduct in the treatment of the Indians, witches and 
quakers in New England, Indians and negroes, in New York, and the 
cruelty with which the aborigines were treated in Virginia. 



114 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



These invaders of a country (in the peaceable possession of a free and 
happy people, entirely independent, as the deer of the forests) made war 
upon them, with all the advantage of fire-arms and the military knowl- 
edge of Europe, in the most barbarous manner; not observing any rules of 
nations, or the principles of modern warfare, much less the benign injunc- 
tions, of the gospel. They soon taught the Indians, by their fatal example, 
to retaliate with the most inveterate malice and diabolical cruelty. The 
civilized Europeans, though flying from persecution of the old world, 
did not hesitate to deny their professed religion of peace and good will to 
men, by murdering men, women and children — selling captives as slaves 
— cutting off the heads and quartering the bodies of those who were 
killed nobly fighting for their liberty and their country, in self defense, 
and setting them up at various places, in ignoble triumph at their success, 
Philip, an independent sovereign of the Pequods, who disdained to sub- 
mit, but died, fighting at the head of his men, had his head cut off and 
carrii-d on a pole with great rejoicing to New Plymouth, where, Wynne 
says, his skull is to be seen to this day. — Vid. i vol., 106 to 108. 

This conduct produced greater violence and barbarity on the part of 
the other nations of Indians in the neighborhood, often joined by French 
Europeans who acted, at times, worse than the native Indians, and by 
this means, a total disregard of promises and pledged faith on both sides 
became common. Ibid. 124-6. 

I do not quote these instances of inhuman conduct to justify the 
Indians, but only to show that they were not the only savages, and that 
the blame, as is too common, ought not to fall all on one side, because 
they were vanquished, but should produce same cqmmisseration and 
principles of Christian benevolence towards these highly injured and suf- 
fering sons of the wilderness. In the beginning of the Revolutionary 
War, the Americans were constantly styled by their invaders as rebels; 
and had we been conquered, I have little doubt but that we should have 
been treated much the same as the Indians have been, with the difference 
-of having been hanged, instead of being scalped and beheaded. But as 
we proved successful, by the good providence of God, we are now glo- 
rious asserters of liberty and the freedom of men. The conduct 
of the Israelites themselves, while in a state of civilization and 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



1 15 



under the government of a kin**, and with the prophets of God to 
direct and teach them, did not observe a much hcttcr spirit than those 
supposed Israelites, wretched and forlorn, in the wilderness of America, 
have done. ''When Ahaz, king of Judah, had sinned against God, He 
delivered him into the hands of the king of Assyria, and he was also 
delivered into the hands of Pekah, king of Israel, who smote him with a 
great slaughter, and slew, in Judah, one hundred and twenty thousand 
in one day, who were all valient men." — II. Chron. XXVII, 5. And the 
children of Israel carried away captive, of their brethren, two hundred 
thousand women, sons and daughters; took also much spoil from them, 
and brought the spoil to Samaria. But a prophet of the Lord was there, 
whose name was Oded, and he went out before the host that came into 
Samaria, and said unto them: "Behold, because the Lord God of your 
fathers was wroth with Judah, and hath delivered them into your hands, 
and you have slain them in a rage, that reacheth up to Heaven. And 
now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem, for 
bond-men and bond-women unto you; but are these not with you, even 
w r ith you, sins against the Lord your God? Now hear me, therefore, and 
deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren; 
for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you." 

Here we cannot have the same hopes of tracing the present practices 
of the natives of the woods to any certain source, as in the case of their 
languages. When a people change from a settled to a wandering state, 
especially if thereby they be totally removed from any connection or 
intercourse with civilized countries, they must necessarily accommodate 
their then pressing wants and necessities. 

Their practices must change with their circumstances. Not so their 
language; for although it may greatly altar, and often degenerate for want 
of cultivation, or by separating into parties far removed from each other; 
yet the roots and principles of the language, may in remote ages, be 
traced in the different dialects, so as to afford tolerable proof of the origi- 
nal language. 

If a people, before their emigration, had any knowledge of the arts and 
sciences, although this might, and indeed would lead them, even in a 
wandering state, to discover more ingenuity and method in providing for 



116 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



their wants, yet in after ages, as they separated from each other and colo- 
nized into distant parts, they would lose their knowledge, and finally 
know nothing of them but by tradition, except so far as should fall within 
their means and absolute wants; which, in the first case may be few, and 
in the other may be pressing. So that we may reasonably conclude, that 
the first wanderers would leave much greater evidence of their origin, 
and their knowledge of the mechanical arts, than their posterity could 
possibly do. And further, that the nearer to the place of their first per- 
manent settlement, the greater would be the remains of those arts. 

However, we will endeavor to search into and enumerate those few 
customs that we have any account of, which prevailed with them when 
the Europeans first arrived among them, and some of which they still 
retain. 

We do not mean to take up the silly and ridiculous stories published 
by many writers on this subject, who either had particular, and often 
wicked ends to answer by their publications, or they founded their nar- 
ratives on information received on the most transient acquaintance of a 
few hours, with the vicious and worthless among the Indians along our 
frontiers; nor shall we trust to accounts related by ignorant traders, who 
did not comprehend either the idiom of their language, or the strong 
metaphorical and figurative mode of expressing themselves. This has 
led to the most false and absurd accounts of both Indian manners and 
language. To give one instance of this, though among the best of them, 
the following fact is extracted from an account given of the Mohawks in 
1664, by a reverend gentleman who ought to have known better, and 
must have had an education 'and ,known the principles of grammar: "This 
nation has a very heavy language, and I find great difficulty in learning 
it, so as to speak and preach to them fluently. There are no Christians 
who understand their language thoroughly. When I am among them, I 
ask them how things are called. One will tell me a word in the infina- 
tive mode, another in the indicative. One in the first, another in the sec- 
ond person. One in the present, another in the past tense. So that I 
stand sometimes and look, but do not know how to put it down. And 
as they have their declensions and conjugations, so they have their 
increases, like the Greeks; and I am sometimes as if I was distracted, and 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



117 



cannot tell what to do, and there is no person to set me right. I asked 
the commissary of the Dutch West India Company what this meant, and 
he answered he did not know, but imagined they changed their 
language every two or three years." He had been connected with 
them twenty years. 

The Indians are perfect republicans; they will admit of no inequality 
among them but what arises from age, or great qualifications for either 
council or war. Although this is the case in peace, yet in war they 
observe great discipline and perfect subordination to their beloved man 
w r ho carries the holy ark, and to their officers, who are appointed on 
account of the experience they have had, of their prowess in war, and 
good conduct in the management and surprising of an enemy, or saving 
their men by a timely retreat; but this subordination ends with the cam- 
paign. 

As the Israelites were divided into tribes, and had a chief over them, 
and always marched under ensigns of some animal peculiar to each tribe, 
so the Indian nations are universally divided into tribes, under a sachem 
or king, chosen by the people from the wisest and bravest among them. 
He has neither influence nor distinction, but from his wisdom and pru- 
dence. He is assisted by a council of old, wise and beloved men, as they 
call their priests and councilors. Nothing is determined, of a public 
nature, but in this council, w r here everyone has an equal voice. The chief, 
or sachem, sits in the middle, and the council on each hand, forming a 
semi-circle, as the high priest of the Jews did in the Sanhedrim of tha 
nation. 

Mr. Penn, when he first arrived in Pennsylvania, in the year 1683, and 
made a treaty with them, makes the following observations, in a letter he 
then wrote to his friends in England: "Every king has his council, and 
that consists of all the old and wise men of his nation, which perhaps are 
two hundred people. Nothing of moment is taken, be it war, 
peace, selling of land, or traffic, without advising with them. 
It is admirable to consider how powerful the chiefs are, and yet how 
they move by the breath of the people. I have had occasion to be in 
council with them upon treaties for land, and to adjust the 
terms of trade. Their order is thus: the king sits in the middle of a 



118 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



half moon, and has his conncil, the old and the wise, on each hand. 
Behind them, at a little distance, sit the young fry, in the same figure. 
Having consulted and resolved their business, the king ordered one of 
them to speak to me. He came to me, and in the name of his king, 
saluted me. Then took me by the hand, and told me that he was ordered 
by his king to speak to me; and that now it was not he, but the king who 
spoke, because what he should say was the king's mind. During the 
time this person was speaking, not a man of them was observed to whis- 
per or smile. The old were grave — the young reverend in their deport- 
ment. They spoke little, but fervently and with elegance. He will 
deserve the name of wise, who outwits them in any treaty about a thing 
they understand. At .every sentence they shout, and say 'amen,' in 
their way." 

Mr. Smith, in his History of New Jersey, confirms this general state- 
ment. "They are grave even to sadness upon any common, and more so 
opon any serious occasions; observant of those in company, and respect- 
ful to the aged; of a temper cool and deliberate, never in .haste to speak, 
but wait, for a certainty, that the person who had spoken before them 
had finished all he had to say. They seem to hold European vivacity in 
contempt, because they found such as came among them, apt to interrupt 
each other, and frequently speak altogether. Their behavior in public 
councils was strictly decent and instructive. Every one in his turn, 
was heard according to his rank of years or wisdom, or services to his 
country. Not a word, whisper or murmur was heard while any one 
spoke, to commend or condemn; the younger ones were totally silent. 
Those denominated kings, were fachems distinguished by their wisdom 
and good conduct. The respect paid them was voluntary, and not exacted 
or looked for, nor the omission regarded. The sachems directed in 
their councils, and had the chief disposition of their lands." — l^age 
142, 144. 

Every nation of Indians have certain customs which they observe in 
their public transactions with other nations, and in their private affairs 
among themselves, which is scandalous for any one among them not to 
observe. And these always draw after them either public or private 
resentment, whenever they are broken. Although these customs may, 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



in their detail, differ in one nation, when compared with another, yet 
it is easy to discern that they have all had one origin. This is also appar- 
ent from every nation understanding them. Mr. Golden says: "Their 
great men, both sachems and captains, are generally poorer than the com- 
mon people; for they affect to give away and distribute all the presents or 
plunder they get in their treaties, or in war, so as to leave nothing to 
themselves. There is not a man in the ministry of the Five Nations, (of 
whom Mr. Colden was writing) who had gained his office otherwise than 
by merit. There is not the least salary, or any sort of profit annexed to 
any office, to tempt the covetous or the sordid; but on the contrary, every 
unworthy action is attended with the forfeiture of their commission; for 
their authority is only the esteem of the people, and ceases the moment 
that esteem is lost. An old Mohawk sachem, in a poor blanket and a 
dirty shirt, may be seen issuing his orders, with as arbitrary an authority 
as a Roman dictator. 

As every nation, as before observed, has its peculiar standard or sym- 
bol — as an eagle, a bear, a wolf or an otter — so has each tribe the like 
badge from which it is denominated. When they encamp on a march, 
they always cut the representation of their ensign or symbol on the trees, 
by which it may be known who have been there. The sachem of each 
tribe is a necessary party in all conferences and treaties, to which he 
affixes the mark of his tribe, as a corporation does that of the public seal. 

If you go from nation to nation, you will not find one who does not 
lineally distinguish himself by his respective family. As the family or 
tribe of the eagle, panther, (which is their lion) tiger, buffalo, (their ox 
or bull); and also the bear, deer, raccoon, &c, &c. So among the Jews, 
was the lion of the tribe of Judah — Dan was known by a serpent — 
Issacharbyan ass, and Benjamin by a wolf. But the Indians, as the 
Jews, pay no religious respect for any of these animals, or for any other 
whatever. 

They reckon time after the manner ot the Hebrews. They divide the 
year into spring, summer, autumn or the falling of the leaf, and winter. 
Koran is their word for winter with the Cherokee Indians, as it is with 
the Hebrews. They number the years by any of these four periods, for 
they have no name for a year. And they subdivide these, and count 



120 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



the year by lunar months, or moons, like the Istaelites, who also counted 
by moons. They call the sun and moon by the same word, with the addi- 
tion of day and night, as the day sun or moon — the night sun or moon. 
They count the day by three sensible differences of the sun, like the 
Hebrews; as the sun coming out — mid-uay, and the sun is dead, or sun- 
set. Midnight is half way between the sun going in and coming out of the 
water; also by midnight and cock-crowing. The}^ begin their eclesiasti- 
cal year at the first appearance of the first new moon of the vernal equi- 
nox, according to the eclesiastical year of Moses. They pay great regard 
to the first appearance of every new moon. They name the various sea- 
sons of the year from the planting and ripening of the fruits. The green 
eared moon is the most beloved or sacred, when the first of the fruits 
become sanctified, by being annually offered up; and from this period 
they count their beloved or holy things. 

The number and regular periods of the Indian public religious feasts, 
(as will be seen hereafter) is a good historical proof that they counted 
time, and observed a weekly Sabbath long after their arrival on the 
American continent, as this is applicable to all nations. Till the seventy 
years' captivity commenced; according to Dr. Prideaux, the Israelites had 
only numerical names for the solar and lunar months, except two called 
Abib and Ethanaim. The former signifies a green ear of corn, and the 
latter roleust and valiant. And by the first name the Indians term their 
passover, as an explicative. These two months were equinoctial. Abib 
or the present Nisan of the Jews, was the sixth month of the civil, and 
the first of the eclesiastical year, answering to our March or April; and 
Ethanaim, which began the civil year, was the sixth of the eclesiastical 
the same as our September or October. 

Mr. Bartram says while he was at Attasse, in the Creek nation, on a 
Sabbath day, he observed a great solemnity in the town, and a remarka- 
ble silence and retirednes of the red inhabitants. Few of them were to be 
seen — the doors of their dwellings were shut, and if a child chanced to 
stray out, it was quickly drawn indoors again. He asked the meaning of 
this, and was immediately answered, that it being the people's Sabbath, 
the Indians kept it religiously sacred to the Great Spirit. The writer of this 
being present on the Lord's day, at the worship of seven different nations 



i 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 121 

who happened (accidentally) to beat the scat of government together, 
he was pleased at their orderly conduct. They were addressed by an old 
sachem, apparently with great energy ami address. An interpreter being 
present, he asked him to explain what the speaker had said. The inter- 
preter answered that the substance of what he delivered, was a warm 
representation to his audience, of the love the Great Spirit had always 
manifested towards the Indians, mora than any other people. That they 
were in a special manner, under his government and immediate direction. 
That it was, therefore, the least return they could make for so much 
goodness, gratefully to acknowledge his favor, and be obedient to his 
laws — to do his will, and to avoid everything that was evil and ofcourse 
displeasing to him. 

Just before the services began the writer of this observed an Indian 
standing at the window with the interpreter, looking into a amall field 
adjoining the house, where a great many white children were plaving 
with the Indian children, and making a considerable noise. The Indian 
spoke much in earnest and seemed rather displeased. The interpreter 
answered him with great apparent interest. On being asked the subject 
of their conversation, he said the Indian was lamenting the sad state of 
those white children, whom he called poor destitute orphans. The inter- 
preter asked why he considered them orphans? For he believed it was 
not true. The Indian, with great earnestness, replied, is this not the day 
on which they told me the white people worshiped the Great Spirit? If 
so, surely those children, if they had parents, or any person to take care 
of them, would not be suffered to be out there playing, and making such 
a noise. No! no! they have lost their fathers and their mothers, and have 
no one to take care of them. 

When the Indians travel, they always count the time by sleeps, which 
is a very ancient custom, and perhaps may have been derived from the 
Mosaic method of counting time, making the evening and the morning to 
be the first day, &c. 

They have also an ancient custom of setting apart certain houses and 
towns, as places of refuge, to which a criminal, and even a captive, may 
fly and be safe from the avenger of blood, if he can but enter it. 

Mr. Barton says: "We arrived at Alapachuela town, in the Creek 



122 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS 



nation. This is esteemed the mother town, sacred to peace. No captives, 
are put to death, or human blood spilt here." 

The Cherokees, according to Adair, though now exceedingly corrupt, 
still observe the law of refuge, so inviolably, that they allow their beloved, 
town the privilege of protecting a wilful murderer; but they seldom allow 
him to return home from it in safety. 

The town of refuge called Choate, is situated on a large stream of the 
Mississippi, five miles above where Fort London formerly stood. Here r , 
some years ago, a brave Englishman was protected, after killing an Indian 
warrior, in defense of his property. He told Adair, that after some 
months stay there, he intended returning to his home in the neighbor- 
hood; but the chief told him it would prove fatal to him. So he was 
obliged to stay there until he satisfied the friends of the deceased, by 
presents to their full satisfaction. In the upper country of the Muskoge,, 
there was an old beloved town called Koosah, now reduced to a small 
ruinous village, which is still a place of safety for those who kill unde- 
signedly. 

In almost every Indian nation, there are several peaceable towns. 
They seem formerly to have been towns of refuge, for it is not within the 
memory of their oldest people, that ever human blood was shed in them;, 
although they often force persons from them and put them to death else- 
where. 

It may be thought improper here, to say much of the warlike abilities 
and military knowledge of the Indians, as it is very popular, especially 
with Europeans, to despise them as warriors, by which means thousands 
of Europeans and Americans have lost their lives. But as it may show 
that they are not so ignorant as strangers to them have thought them, a 
short account of their military conduct, may elucidate our general 
subject. 

I am assisted by Col. Smith, who lived long with them, and often: 
fought against them, in what may be said on this occasion. 

However despised, they are, perhaps, as well versed in the art of that 
kind of war, calculated for their circumstances, and are as strict discipli- 
narians in it as any troops in Europe; and whenever opposed by not more 
than two or three to one Indian, they have been generally victorious, or 



INDIAN Cl'STOMS AND HABITS. 



come off with small loss, while they have made- their opponents repent 
their rashness and ignorance of war on their plan. And indeed, the} 
were always victorious over European troops, till sad experience taught 
foreign officers to pay more respect to the advice of American officers, 
who, by adopting the Indian principles of war, knew how to meet them 
with advantage. It is not sufficient for an army to be well disciplined on 
their own principles, without considering those of the enemy they are to 
contend with. Braddock, Boquet and several others of great celebrity in 
their own country, have been defeated or surprised, by a (comparatively ) 
small number of those inhabitants of the wilderness, and greatly suffered 
for despising what they thought untutored savages; and to save the honor 
and military character of those who commanded, have been led to give- 
very false reports of the combats. The following fact will give force to 
these observations: 

"In Col. Boquet' s last campaign of 1764, I saw (says Col. Smith,) the 
official return made by the British officers, of the number of Indians that 
were in arms against us in that year, which amounted to thirty thousand. 
As I was then a lieutenant in the British service, I told them I was of 
the opinion that there were not above one thousand in arms against us, 
as they were divided at Broadstreet's army, being then at lake Erie. 
The British officers hooted at me, and said that they could not make 
England sensible of the difficulties they labored under in fighting them; 
and it was not expected that their troops could fight the undisciplined 
savages of America, five to one, as they did the East Indians, and there- 
fore my report would not answer their purpose, as they could not give 
an honorable account of the war, but by augmenting their numbers." 

Smith was of the opinion that from the time of Braddock' s defeat until 
the time of his writing there never were more than three thousand 
Indians, at any time in arms against us, west of Fort Pitt, and frequently 
not more that half of that number. 

According to the Indian's own account, during the w r hole of Brad- 
dock's war, or from 1755 to 1758, they killed and took fifty of our people 
for one that they lost. In the war of 1793 they killed comparatively few 
of our people, and lost more of theirs, as the frontier inhabitants, especially 
the Virginians, had learned something of their method of war; yet, even 



124 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



in this war, according to their account (which Smith believes to be true) 
they killed and took ten of our people for one they lost. 

The Indians, though few in number, put the government to immense 
expense of blood and treasure, in the war from 1756 to 1791. The fol- 
lowing campaigns in the Western country will be proof of this: 

Gen. Braddock's, in the year 1755; Col. Armstrong's, against the Chat- 
taugan town, on the Alleghany, in 1 757 ' Gen. Forbes', in 17585 Gen. 
Stanwix's, in 1779; Gen. Monckton's in 1760; Col. Boquet's, in 1761 and 
again in 1763, when he fought the battle of Brushy R«n, and lost above 
one hundred men, but by taking the^advice and assistance of the Virginia 
volunteers, finally drove the Indians; Col. Armstrong's, up the west side 
of Susquehannah, in the same year; Gen. Broadstreet's, up lake Erie, in 
1764; Col. Bouquet's, at Muskingum, at the same time; Lord Dunmore's, 
in 1774; Gen. MTntosh's in 1778, and again in 17S0; Col. Bowman's, in 
1779; Gen. Clark's, 1782, and against the Wabash Indians in 1789; Gen. 
Logan's, against the Shawanese in the same year; Col. Harmer's, in 1790; 
Gen. Wilkinson's, in 1791; Gen St. Clair's, in 1791 ; and Gen. Wayne's, 
in 1794. Which in all are twenty-three campaigns, besides smaller expe- 
ditions, such as the French Creek expedition, Colonels Edward's, 
Loughrie's, &c. All these were exclusive of the numbers of men who 
were internally employed as scouting parties, in erecting forts, guarding 
stations, &c. 

When we take the foregoing account into consideration may we not 
reasonably conclude that the Indians are the best disciplined troops in the 
world, especially when we consider the ammunition and arms they are 
obliged to use are of the worst sort, without bayonets or cartouch boxes. 
No artificial means of carrying either provisions or baggage, while their 
enemies have every warlike implement, and other resources to the utmost 
of their desire. Is not the best discipline, that which has the greatest ten- 
dency to annoy the enemy, and save their own men? It is apprehended 
that the Indian discipline is better calculated to answer their purpose in 
the woods of America than the British discipline in the plains of Flan- 
ders. British discipline in the woods, is the way they have been slaught- 
ered, with scarcely any chance to defend themselves. 



INDIAN Cl'STOMS AND IIA1UTS. 



125 



PRIVATES. 

The Indians sum up their art of war thus: -The business of the private 
warrior is to he under command, or punctually to obey orders. To learn 
to march abreast in scattered order, so as to be in readiness to surround 
the enemy, or to prevent being surrounded. To be good marksmen, and 
active in the use of their musket or rifle. To practice running. To learn 
to endure hunger or hardships with patience and fortitude. To tell the 
truth at all times to their officers, more especially when sent out to spy 
the enemy. 

CONCERNING OFFICERS. 

They say it would be absurd to appoint a man to an office, whose skill 
and courage have never been tried. That all officers should be advanced 
only on account of merit. That no single man ahould havejhe absolute 
control of an army. That a council of officers should determine when 
and how an attack is to be made. It is the duty of officers to lay plans, 
and to take every advantage of the enemy, to ambush and surprise them 
and to prevent the like to themselves. It is the duty of officers to pre- 
pare and deliver speeches to their men, in order to animate and encour- 
age them, and on a march to prevent the men, at any time, getting into a 
huddle, because if the enemy should surround them in that position they 
would be greatly exposed to the enemy's fire. It is likewise their busi- 
ness, at all times, to endeavor to annoy the enemy, and save their own 
men; and therefore ought never to bring on an attack without considera- 
ble advantage, or without what appears to them sufficient to secure vic- 
tory, and that with a loss of but few men. And if. at any time, they 
should be mistaken in this, and are likely to loose many men in gaining 
the victory, it is their duty to retreat, and wait for a better opportunity 
of defeating their enemy, without the danger of loosing so many men." 
Their conduct proves that they act on these principles. 

This is the statement given by those who are experimentally acquainted 
with them, and as long as the British officers despised both Indians and 
Americans, who had studied their art of war, and formed themselves on 
the same plan, they were constantly beaten by those soldiers of nature, 
though seldom one "fourth of the number of the British. But the British 



126 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



officers had one advantage over them. That was the art of drawing up 5 
and reporting to their superiors, plans of their battles, and exaggerated 
accounts of their great success, and the immense loss of the Indians, 
which were never thought of till long after the battle was over, and often 
while they were smarting under their severe defeat or surprise. 

The writer of this could give some instances, if it would answer any 
good end, that came under his own knowledge. 

When the Indians determine on war or hunting, they have stated pre- 
paratory, religious ceremonies, for purification, particularly by fasting, as 
the Israelites had. 

Father Charlevoix gives an account of this custom in his time. In case 
of an intention of going to war, he who is to command does not com- 
mence the raising of soldiers, till he has fasted several days, during which 
he is smeared with black, has no conversation with anyone, invokes by 
day and night his tuteler spirit, and above all is very careful to observe 
his dreams. The fast being over, he assembles his friends, and with a 
string of wampum in his hands, he speaks to them after this manner: 
"Behold! the Great Spirit authorizes my sentiments, and inspires me 

with what I ought to do. * The blood of is not wiped away; his 

body is not covered, and I will acquit myself of this duty towards him," 
&c. 

Mr. McKenzie in some measure confirms this account, though among 
different nations. "If the tribes feel themselves called upon to go to war, 
the elders convene the people in order to obtain the general opinion. If 
it be for war, the chief publishes his intention to smoke in the sacred 
stem (a pipe) at a certain time. To this solemnity, meditation and fast- 
ing are required as preparatory ceremonials. When the people are thus 
assembled, and the meeting sanctified by the custom of smoking (this 
may be in imitation of the smoke of the incense offered on the altar of 
Jews) the chief enlarges on the causes which have called them together, 

* This shows the mistakes committed by writers who do not intimately understand the idiom of the 
Indian language. Above it is said that "The warrior invoked his tutular spirit," but by this address it is 
plain that it was the Great Spirit. So the translator of Charlevoix calls a string of wampum, of which the 
war-belts are made, a collar of beads. Great allowance should be made for the travellers and writers. The 
secrecy of Indians, in keeping all their religious rites from the knowledge of white people, lest they should 
defile them by their presence, adds much to their difficulty. And Charlevoix being a religious Roman Cath- 
olic, easily slid into the idea of an attendant Spirit. 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. IS 1 ? 

md the necessity of the measures propose* on the occasion. He then 
invites those who are willing to follow him, to smoke out o) the sacred 



.., which is considered as a ...ken of enrollment." A sacredfeastthen 
SSte to kT^rmakes'a "speech t ; explain more fully the design of 



'' a ,„! after much ceremony, usual on the occasion, "The chief 



[Urillllji LVJ niv. Kits*) "« J - 

their meeting, then concludes with an acknowledgment tor past merc.es 
received, and a prayer for the continuance of them, from the master of 
life He then sits down, and the whole company declare their approba- 
bation and thanks by uttering the word '//„" (in a very hoarse, guttural 
sound being the third syllable of the beloved name, with an emphatic 
prolongation of the last letter.) The chief then takes up the pipe and 
holds it to the mouth of the officiating person, (like a priest of the Jews 
with the incense.) who, after smoking three whiffs, utters a short prayer 
and then goes round with it from east to west, to every person present. 
The ceremony then being ended, he returns the company thanks for ne.r 
attendance, and wishes them, as well as the whole tribe, health and long 
life " 

Do not these practices remind the reader of the many directions in the 
Jewish ritual, commanding the strict purification, or sanctifying individu 
als about to undertake the great business, or to enter on important 
ffi ces ^ 

Adair, who had greater opportunities of knowing the real character of 
the Indians to the southward, than any man that has ever written on the 
subject, gives the following account: "Before the Indians go to war, they 
have many preparatory ceremonies of purification and fasting, like what 
is recorded of the Israelites. When the leader begins to beat up for vol- 
unteers he goes three times round his dark winter house, contrary to the 
course of the sun, sounding the war-whoop, singing the war-song and 
beating a drum* He addresses the crowd who come about mm, and 
after much ceremony he proceeds to whoop again for the warnors to 
come and join him and sanctify themselves for success against the com- 
mon enemy, according to their ancient religious law. A number soon 
join him in his winter house, where thev live separate from all others, and 
purify themselves for the space of three days and three nights, exclusive 

• Vhelndiana have .ometMw, to , m K.«.n of a dram, m .d. or a w- dear «. dr«- over a large gourd 

or frame of wood. 



128 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



of the first broken day. On each day they observe a strict fast till sunset, 
watching the young men very narrowly, (who have not been initiated in 
war titles) lest unusual hunger should tempt them to violate it, to the 
supposed danger of all their lives in the war, by destroying the power of 
their purifying, beloved physic, which they drink plentifully during that 
time. They are such strict observers of their law of purification, and 
think it so essential in obtaining health and success in war, as not to 
allow the best beloved trader that lived among them, knowingly, to enter 
the beloved ground appropriated to the duty of being sanctified for war, 
much less to associate with them in the woods, at such a time, though he 
is united with them in the same war design. They oblige him to walk 
and encamp separately by himself, as an impure, dangerous animal, till 
the leader hath purified him, according to the usual time and method, 
with the consecrated things of the ark." With the Hebrews, the ark of 
Berith, (the purifier) was a small wooden chest, as has already been 
shown in the first chapter, of three feet nine inches in length, and two 
feet three inches broad, and two feet three inches in height, and overlaid 
with pure gold. The Indian ark is of a very simple construction, and it 
is only the intention and application of it that makes it worthy of notice, 
tor it is made with pieces of wood securely fastened together in the form 
of a square. The middle of three of the sides extend a little out, but the 
fourth side is flat, for the convenience of the person's back who carries 
it. This ark has a cover, and the whole is made impenetrably close with 
hickory splinters. It is about half the dimensions of the Jewish ark, and 
may properly be called the Hebrew ark imitated. The leader and a 
beloved waiter carry it by turns. It contains several consecrated vessels, 
made by beloved, superanuated women, and of such various antiquated 
forms, as would have puzzled Adam to have given significant names to 
each. These two carriers are purified longer than the rest, that the first 
Tnay be fit to act in the religious office of a priest of war, and the other to 
carry the awful, sacred ark, all the while they are engaged in the act of 
fighting. 

"And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, rise 
up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee, 
Hee before thee. And when it rested he said, return O Lord unto the 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



1 29 



many thousands of [sraeL"— Numbers X, 35-36. "But they presumed to 

g 0 up im to the hill top; nevertheless, the ark of the covenant of the Lord 
and Moses, departed not out of the camp. Then the Amalekites came 
down and the Canaanites who dwelt on that hill, and smote them, and 
discomfited them even unto Hormah " — Ibid XIV, 45. 

"And David said unto them, Ye are the cheif of the fathers of the 
Levites; sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring 
up the ark of the Lord God of Israel into the place that I have prepared 
f or it/ 1 — 1 Chron. XV. 12. 

The Hetissiu or beloved waiter feeds each of the warriors by an exact 
stated rule, giving them even the water they drink out of his own hands, 
jest by intemperance they should spoil the supposed communicative 
power of their holy things, and occasion [fatal disasters to the war camp. 
They never place the ark on the ground, nor sit it on the bare earth, 
while they are carrying it against the enemy. On hilly ground where 
stones are plenty, they place it on them; but on land where stones are not 
to be had, they use short logs, always resting themselves in like manner. 
The former is a strong imitation on which the Jewish ark was placed, a 
stone rising three fingers breadth above the floor. They had strong faith 
in the power and holiness of their ark, as ever the Isaelites had in theirs, 
ascribing the superior success of the party to their stricter adherence to 
the law, than the other. This ark is deemed too sacred and dangerous to 
be touched, either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling 
enemy, that they will not touch it on any account. It is not to be med- 
dled with by anyone but the war chieftain and his waiter, who are conse- 
crated for the purpose, under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor 
would the most inveterate enemy among their nations touch it in the 
woods for the same reason, which is agreeable to the religious opinion 
and customs of the Hebrews, representing the sacredness of their ark, as 
in the case of Uzzah and the Phillistines. 

A gentleman who was at the Ohio in the year 1756, assured the writer 
that he saw a stranger there, very importunate to view the inside of the 
Cherokee ark, which was covered with a dressed deer skin, and placed 
on a couple of short blocks of wood. An Indian sentinel watched it, 
armed with a hickory bow. and brass pointed, barbed arrow; and he was 



130 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



faithful to his trust; for finding the stranger obtruding, with apparent 
determination to pollute the supposed sacred vehicle, he drew his arrow 
to the head, and would have shot him through the body, had he not sud- 
denly withdrawn. 

The leader virtually acts the part of a priest of war pro tempore, in imi- 
tation of the Israelites, fighting under the Divine military banner of old. 

The Indians will not cohabit with the women while they are out at 
war; they religiously abstain from every kind of intercourse, even with 
their own wives, for the space of three days and nights before they go 
out to war; and so after they returned home, because they are to sanctify 
themselves. So Joshua commanded the Israelites, the night before they 
marched, to sanctify themselves, by washing their clothes, avoiding all 
impurities, and avoiding all matrimonial intercourse. 

When the Indians return home victorious over an enemy, they sing the 
triumphal song to T. O. He. wah, ascribing the victory to Him, like a 
religious custom of the Israelites, who were commanded always to 
attribute their success in war to Jehovah, and not to their swords and 
arrows. 

The Indian method of making peace, carries the face of their great 
antiquity. When the applicants arrive near the town, they send a mes- 
senger ahead, to inform the enemy of their amicable intentions. He car- 
ries a swan's wing in his hand, painted with streaks of white clay, as an 
expressive emblem of his peaceful embassy. The next day, when they 
have made their friendly parade, by firing off their guns and whooping, 
they enter the beloved square. Their chief, who is ahead of the rest 
is met by one of the old beloved men of the town. They approach each 
other in a bowing posture. The former says: "To, is le cher Anggoma?" 
Are you come a friend, in the name of the Great Spirit? The other 
replies: "Yah, Orahre O Anggona" The Great Spirit is with me, I am 
come a friend in His name. The beloved man then grasps the stranger 
with both his hands, around the wrist of the right hand, which holds 
some green branches; then again about the elbow; then about the arm 
close to the shoulder, as a near approach to the heart. Then he waves 
an eagle's tale over the head of the stranger, which is the strongest pledge 
of good faith. The writer of this has been a witness to this ceremony 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



performed In an embassy from the Creek nation, with his excellency 
Gen. Washington, president of the United States, in the year 1*jSq. 

The common method of greeting oneanother is analogous with the 
above, in a great manner. The host only says Ish la chu? Are you a 
friend? The guest replies: Orahrc-O. I am come in the name of O.E. 
A., or Yohewah. 

"They are very loving to one another; if several came to a Christian's 
house, and the master of it gave to one of them victuals, and none to the 
rest, he would divide it into equal shares amongst his companions. If the 
Christian visited them, they would give them the first cut of their vict- 
uals. They never eat the hollow of the thigh of anything they kill; and 
if a Christian stranger came to one of their houses in their towns, he was 
received with the greatest hospitality, and the best of everything was set 
before him. And this was often repeated from house to house." — Smith's 
History of New Jersey, page 130. 

The Indians are not only religiously attached to their tribe while living, 
but their bodies, and especially their bones, are the objects of their solici- 
tous care after they are dead. Among the Mohawks, their funeral rites 
show they have some notion of a future state of existence. They make 
a round hole in which the body can be placed upright, or upon its 
haunches, which, after the body is placed in it, is covered with timber, to 
support the earth, which they lay over it, and thereby keep the body 
from being pressed, they then raise the earth in a round hill over it. 
They dress the corpse in all its finery, and put wampum and other things 
into the grave w r ith it. The relatives will not suffer grass or any weed to 
grow on the grave, and frequently visit it with lamentations. 

Among the French Indians in Canada, as mentioned by Charlevoix, as 
soon as the sick person expires, the house is filled with mournful cries; 
and this last- ■>.& long as the family are able to defray the expense, for 
they mus Keep open house all the time. In some • nations the relatives 
fast to the end of the funeral, with tears and cries. They treat their visit- 
ors, praise the dead, and pass mutual compliments. In other nations they 
hire wo. nen to weep, who perform their duty punctually. They sing — 
they dance — they weep without ceasing, always keeping time. He has 
seen the relatives in distress, walking at a great pace, and put their hands 



\ 



132 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



on the heads of all they met, probably to invite them to share their grief. 
Those who have sought a resemblance between the Hebrews and the 
Americans, have not failed to take particular notice of their manner of 
mourning, as several expressions in Scripture give room to such conject- 
ures, and to suppose them much alike to those in use with those people 
of God. Indeed, do not these customs and practices seem to be derived, 
from those of the Jews burying their dead in tombs hewn out of rocks, 
wherein were niches, in which the dead were set in an upright posture, 
and often with much of their property buried with them. Josephus tells us 
that from king David's sepulcher, Hyrcanus, the Maccabean, took three 
thousand talents, about thirteen hundred years after his death, to get rid 
of Antiochus, then beseiging Jerusalem. 

The southern Indians, when any of their people die at home, wash and 
anoint the corpse, and soon bring it out of doors, for fear of polution. They 
place it opposite to the door in a sitting posture. They then carry it 
three times round the house in which he is to be interred, for sometimes 
they bury him in his dwelling house, and under his bed. The religous 
man of the deceased's family, in this procession goes before the corpse, 
saying each time in a solemn tone, Yah, then Ho, which is sung by all 
the procession. Again he strikes upon He, which is also sung by the 
rest. Then all of them suddenly strike off the solemn chorus, by saying, 
wah, which constitutes the divine essential name, Yah-Ho-He-wah. In 
the Chocktaw nation they often sing, Hal-le-lu-yah, intermixed with their 
lamentations. They put the corpse in the tomb in a sitting posture, with 
his face towards the east, and his head anointed with bear's oil. He is 
dressed in the finest apparel, having his gun, pouch and hickory bow, 
with a young panther's skin full of arrows, alongside of him, and every 
other useful thing he has been possessed of. The tomb is made firm and 
clean inside. They cover it with thick logs, so as to bear several tiers of 
cypress bark, and then a quantity of clay over it. 

The graves of the dead are so sacred among the northern nations, that 
to profane them, is the greatest hostility that can be committed against?- a 
nation, and the greatest sign that they will come to no terms with them. 

The Indians imagine if a white man was to be buried in the domestic 
tombs of their kindred, it would be highly criminal; and that the spirits 



INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



would haunt the caves of the house at night, and cause misfortunes to 
their families. 

If any one dies at a distance, and they are not pursued by an enemy, 
the\ place the corpse on a scaffold, secured from the wild beasts and fowls 
of prey. When they imagine the flesh is consumed, and the bones dried, 
they return to the place, bring them home and inter them in a very sol- 
emn manner. The Hebrews in like manner, carefully buried their dead, 
but on any accident, they gathered their bones, and laid them in the 
tombs of their forefathers. Thus Jacob "charged his sons and said unto 
them, I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers, in 
the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite." This was in Canaan. 
•'There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; and there 1 buried 
Leah." "And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God 
will surely visit you, and ye shall carry my bones from hence." "And 
Moses took the bones of Joseph with him."* "And the bones of Joseph 
which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in 
Shechem," as before mentioned. — Joshua XXIV 32. The Jews buried 
near their cities, and sometimes opposite to their houses, implying a 
silent lesson of friendship, and a caution to live well. They buried fami- 
lies together; but strangers apart by themselves. 

When an old Indian finds that it is probable that he must die, he sends 
for his friends, and with them collects his children and family 
around him; and then, with the greatest composure he addresses them 
in the most affectionate manner, giving them his last counsel, and advis- 
ing them to such conduct as he thinks best for their interest. So did the 
patriarchs of old; and the Indians seem to follow their steps, and with as 
much coolness as Jacob to his children, when he was about to die. 

A very worthy clergyman, with whom the writer was well acquainted 
and who had long preached to the Indians, informed him that many 
years ago, having preached in the morning to a considerable number of 
them, in the recess between the morning and afternoon services, news 
suddenly brought, that the son of an old Indian woman, one of the con- 
gregation then present, had fallen into a mill-dam, and was crowned. 



* Gen. XLIX, 28, 31— 125.-Exod. XIII, 19." 



134 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



Immediately the disconsolate mother retired to some distance in deep 
distress, and sat down on the ground. Her female friends soon followed 
her, and placed themselves in like manner around her, in a circle at a 
distance. They continued a considerable time in profound melancholy 
and silence, except now and then uttering a deep groan. All at once the 
mother putting her hand on her mouth, fell with her face flat on the 
ground, her hand continuing on her mouth. This was followed in like 
manner, by all the rest, when all cried out with the most melancholy and 
dismal yellings and groanings. Thus they continued, with their hands 
on their mouths, and their mouths in the dust a considerable time. The 
men also retired to a distance from them, and went through the same 
ceremony, making the most dismal groanings and yellings. 

Need any be reminded of the Jewish customs on occasions of deep 
humiliation, as in Job 21 and 5 — Mark me and be astonished, and lay your 
hand on your mouth. 28 and 9 — The princes refrained from talking, and 
laid their hands on their mouths. 40 and 44 — Behold! I am vile, what 
shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand on my mouth. Micah 7 and 16 
— The nations shall see and be confounded; they shall lay their hands on 
their mouth. Lament. 3 and 9 — He putteth his mouth in the dust, if so 
be, there may be some hope. Prov. 30 and 32 — If thou hast evil, lay 
thine hand upon thy mouth. 

The Chocktaw Indians hire mourners to magnify the merit and loss of 
the dead, and if their tears do not flow, their shrill voices will be heard 
to cry, which answers the solemn chorus much better. However, some 
of them have the art of shedding tears abundantly. 

Jerem. IX, 17 — 19. — "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider ye, and 
call for the mourning women, that they may come, and send for cunning 
women, that they may come, for a voice of wailing is heard." 

By the Mosaic law the serving brother was to raise up seed to the 
deceased brother, who should leave a widow childless. The Indian cus- 
tom resembles this in a considerable degree. A widow among the Indi- 
ans is bound by a strict penal law or custom to mourn the death of her 
husband for the space of three years. But if it be known that the elder 
brother of her deceased husband has lain with her, she is afterwards 
exempt from the mourning law. Has liberty to tie up her hair, anoint 



INDIAN CUSTOM vS AND HABITS. 



i:*5 



and paint herself, w hich she could not otherwise do, under pain of being 
treated as an adulteress. 

The Indians, formerly on the Juniata and Susquehannah rivers, placed 
their dead on close or covered cribs, made for the purpose, until the flesh 
consumed away- At the proper time they gathered the bones, scraped 
and washed them, and then buried them with great ceremony. There is 
a tribe called Nanticokes, that on their removal from an old to a new 
town, carry the bones of their ancestors with them. 

This also prevailed in particular cases among the Canadian Indians. 
An officer of the regular troops at Oswego, upwards of one hundred 
and ten years ago, reported the following fact: "A boy of one of the 
Western nations died at Oswego. The parents made a regular pile of 
split wood, laid the corpse upon it and burned it. While the pile was 
burning they stood gravely by and looked on, without any lamentations, 
but when it was burned down they gathered up the bones and with 
many tears put them into a box, and carried them away with them."* 
The Indians are universally remarkable for a spirit of independence and 
freedom beyond all other people, and they generally consider death as 
far preferable to slavery. They abhor covetousness, and to prevent it 
they burn all the property an Indian has at the time of his death, or put it 
with him in his grave. This necessarily tempts them to frugality and 
abstemiousness in their manner of living. They are wholly ignorant of 
all kind of mechanics, except so far as is pressed on them by necessity. 
They are free from hypocrisy or any forced civility or politeness; but 
their general conduct shows a frank and candid, but plain and blunt 
hospitality and kindness; with a degree of faithfulness in their dealings, 
except with their enemies, that often astonishes white people; who, 
although their pretensions are so much higher, cannot, at least do not, 
reach them in this particular. 

The great author of the Divine legation of Moses, in treating of the 
government of the Jews, both civil and religious, as necessarily united 
under one great head, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, states 
his subjects clearly and fully, and then says: ''But the great poet, Voltaire, 
has, indeed, had a different revelation. 'The pride of every individual 

*Exod. XIII, 19. Josh. XXIV, 12. II. Sam. XXI, 12-14. 



136 INDIAN CUSTOMS AND HABITS. 



among the Jews,' says he, 'is interested in believing that it was not their 
detestable policy, their ignorance of the arts or their impoliteness that 
destroyed them; but that it is God's anger that yet pursues them for their 
idolatries.' This detestable policy, (which I would not consider in the 
most obvious sense of the Mosaic institution, because that might tend to 
make the poet himself detestable) was a principle of independence. This 
ignorance in the arts prevented the entrance of luxury; and this unpolite- 
ness hindered the practice of it. And yet parsimony, frugality and a 
spirit of liberty, which naturally preserve other states, all tended in the 
idea of this wonderful politician the Jews." How surprisingly does this 
observation of Bishop Warburton apply in support of those untutored 
Indians, and point out from whence they must have drawn their prin- 
ciples of conduct. 



-OF THE INDIANS.!- 



OjADOPT the language of Father Charlevoix, "Nothing has un- 
dergone more sudden, frequent or more surprising revolu- 
tions than religion. When men once have abandoned the 
only true one, they soon lose sight of it, and find themselves 
entangled and bewildered in such a labyrinth of incoherent 
errors, inconsistencies and contradictions, that there often 
remains not the smallest clue to lead us back to the truth. One example: 
The buccaniers of St. Domingo, who professed to be Christians, but who 
had no commerce, except among themselves, in less than thirty years, 
and through the sole want of religious worship, instruction and an 
authority capable of retaining them in their duty, had lost all marks of 
Christianity except baptism alone. Had these people continued only to 
the third generation their grand-children would have been as void of 
Christianity as the inhabitants of Terra Australis, or New Guinea. They 
might, possibly, have reserved some ceremonies, the rheaning of which 
they could not account for." 

However, our wandering tribes of Indians have, in a most surprising 
manner, bordering on something rather supernatural, preserved so many 
essential parts of their original plan of Divine worship, and so many of 
their primitive doctrines, although they have at present almost wholly 
forgotten their meaning and their end, as to leave little doubt of their 
great force. 





138 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



They are far from being idolaters, although many good men, from want 
of a knowledge of their language, and often having communion with the 
most worthless part of them, without making any allowance for their 
local situation and circumstances, have given terrible accounts of these 
children of nature. And that is not to be wondered at. For many of 
our worthy, over-zealous and pious Europeans, and some white Ameri- 
cans, deeply affected with a sense of their unhappy state, and feeling the 
importance of the gospel to them, have unwisely gone into the woods tx> 
them, without a proper and preparatory education for so important an 
undertaking. I mean without understanding their language, or being 
well acquainted with their manners, customs and habits; nay! not even- 
making themselves acquainted with their religious prejudices, or by- 
taking sufficient time or using proper means to gain their confidence. 

To people so ignorant of what they ought to have known, and wholly 
trusting to a heathen interpreter, unable to feel or express the nature of 
things, and having to deal with a most jealous and artful people, rendered 
so by the experience of more than a century, by the continual impositions 
and oppressions of the nation to which their visitors belonged, it is quite 
a natural thing that they were often at first despised by the Indians, and. 
then made a mere butt, for the most worthless to frighten and laugh at. 
Hence the Indians have often, in a frolic, dressed themselves in the most 
terrific manner, and made the most frightful images, with every kind of 
extravagant emblem about it, to alarm and terrify their newcomers, of 
whom they thought so lightly. We speak now principally of their ligh*", 
bad people, who inhabit around or near our settlements. That, as a peo- 
ple, they are sensible of propriety, and are careful observers of character, 
is well known to those who have been long conversant with them. It is 
a fact well attested, that a preacher went among them before the Revo- 
lutionary War, and in a sudden discourse to them began to tell them that 
there was a God, who created all things. That it was exceedingly sinful 
and offensive to Him to get drunk, or lie, or steal. All which they must 
carefully avoid. They answered him: "Go about your business, you 
fool! Do not we know that there is a God, as well as you? Go to your 
own people and preach to them; for who gets drunk, and lies, and steals, 
more than the white people?" 



R [TES AND CERKMONIES. 



139 



In short, if the Indians form their idea of us from the common traders 
and land speculators and the common people with whom they usually 
have to do, they will not run into a greater error than we do, when we 
form our ideas of the character of Indians from those who generally ke e p 
about our settlements, and traffic with the frontier inhabitants. 

The Indians are filled with great spiritual pride — we mean their chiefs 
and best men. They consider themselves as under a theocracy, and that 
they have God for their governor and head. They therefore hold all 
other people, comparatively, in contempt. They pay their religious wor- 
ship, as Mr. Adair assures us, (and he has a great opportunity of know- 
ing) to Loak-Ishto, Hoolo-Abba, or the great, beneficient, supreme, holy 
spirit of fire, who resides above the clouds, and on earth with unpolluted, 
holy people. They were never known (whatever some Spanish writer 
may say to the contrary, to cover their own blood-thirsty and more than 
savage barbarity to the natives they found in Mexico at their first arrival 
among them) to pay the least perceivable adoration to images or dead 
persons, or to celestial luminaries, or evil spirits, or to any created being 
whatever. 

Their religious ceremonies are more after the Mosaic institution than 
of pagan imitation. They do not believe the sun to be any larger than 
it appears to the naked eye. Notwithstanding the various accounts we 
have had from different authors, greatly exagerating the reports of the 
Indians' irreligous conduct, they have taken little or no pains to *he well 
informed (for it is attended with considerable difficulty, from their 
known secrecy) and have therefore grossly misrepresented them, without 
designing to mislead. Historians ought not to be trusted, as to detailed 
accounts of these people, with whom it seems to have been previously 
agreed among themselves, to charge with being red savages and barba- 
rians, while the Indians, in return, consider as white savages and accursed 
people, those who thus traduce them. Readers should carefully examine 
into their means of knowledge — their connection with the Indians, and 
the length of time and opportunities they enjoyed in a social intercourse 
with them. 

Difficulties, and those very great, have arisen from the imprac- 
ticability of a stranger being well informed, particularly arising from 



140 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



he unconquerable jealousy and great secrecy in everything relating 
to their religious character. Again, historians are often fond of the mar- 
velous, and are apt to take up with any information they can get, without 
examining its source, and are too apt to make up strange stories to 
answer their private purposes, or to cover base designs. This is fully 
exemplified in the abominable false accounts published by the Spaniards, 
relative to Mexico, on their first conquering, or rather carrying destruc- 
tion and blood-shed through that fine country, to gratify their covetous- 
ness and bloody dispositions; when they had not the least foundation 
in truth for their diabolical accounts. 

Adair assures us from the experience of forty years, he can say, that 
none of the various nations, from Hudson's Bay to the Mississippi, have 
ever been known by our trading people to attempt to foim any image of 
the Great Spirit whom they devoutly worship. They never pretend to 
divine from anything but their dreams, which seems to proceed from a 
tradition, that their ancestors received knowledge of future events from 
heaven by dreams. — Vid. Job XXXIII, &c. 

Du Pratz had a particular intimacy with the chief of the guardians of 
the temple, in a nation near the Mississippi. — 2 vol. 173. That on his 
requesting to be informed of the nature of their worship, he was told 
that they acknowleged a Supreme Being, whom they called Coyo-cop 
chill, or Great Spirit, or the Spirit Infinitely Great, or the Spirit by way 
of excellence. That the word chill, in their language, signifies the most 
superlative degree of perfection, and is added to make that appear, as 
oua, in fire, and oua chill is the supreme fire, or the sun. Therefore by the 
word Coyo-cop -chill, they mean a spirit that surpasses the other spirits 
as much as the sun does common fire. The guardian said that the Great 
Spirit was so great and powerful, that in comparison with him all other 
things were as nothing. He had made all that we see — all that we can 
see, and all that we cannot see. He was so good that He could not do 
ill to any one, even if He had a mind to do it. They believed that the 
Great Spirit had made all things by His will; that the little spirits who are 
His servants, might by His orders, have made excellent works in the uni 
verse, which we admire; but that God Himself, had formed man with 
His own hands. They called the little spirits free servants. That those 



RITES AND CEREMONIES, 



1 1 1 



spirits are alw ays before the Great Spirit, ready to execute His pleasure 
with an extreme diligence. 

That the air was tilled with other spirits, some good, some wicked, and 
that the latter had a chief, who was more wicked than all the rest. 
That the Great Spirit had found him so wicked that he had bound him 
forever, so that the other spirits of the air no longer did so much harm. 

He was then asked how did God make man? He answered that He 
kneaded some clay, and made it into a little man — after examining it and 
finding it well formed, He blew on his work, and forthwith the little man 
had life — grew, acted, and found himself a man, perfectly well shaped. 
He then was asked about the woman. He said probably she was made 
in the same manner as the man. but their ancient speech made no men- 
tion of any difference, only that man was made first. Page 174. 

The Indians also, agreeable to the theocracy of Israel, think the Great 
Spirit to be the immediate head of their state, and that God chose them 
out of all the rest of mankind as His peculiar and beloved people. 

Mr. Locke, one of the ablest men Great Britain ever produced, observes: 
"The commonwealth of the Jews differed from all others, being an abso- 
lute theocracy. The laws established there, concerning the worship of 
the one invisible Deity, were the civil laws of that people, and a part of 
their political government, in which God Himself was the legislator." 

In this, the Indians profess the same thing precisely. This is the exact 
form of their government, which seems unaccountable, w r ere it not 
derived from the same original source, and is the only reason that can be 
assigned for so extraordinary a fact. 

The Indians are exceedingly intoxicated with religious prjde, and hold 
the white people in inexplicable contempt. The common name they 
give us in their speeches literally means nothing; but in their war 
speeches, ottuck ookproose, the accursed people. But they flatter them- 
selves with the name, Hottuk-ore-too-pate — the beloved people. This is 
agreeable to the Hebrew ephithet, Antmi, during the theocracy of Israel. 
When their high priest (if we may be allowed the term for their beloved 
man) addresses the people, he calls them "The Beloved or Holy People." 
These addresses are full of flourishes on the happiness of their country, 
calling it a land flowing with milk and honey. 



142 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



When any of the beloved people die, they soften the thoughts of death 
by saying: "lie is only gone to sleep with his beloved forefathers, "and usu- 
ally mention a proverb among them, neitak intahah — the days appointed 
or allowed him, were finished. And this is theijj^ firm belief, for they 
affirm that there is a fixed time and place, when and where every one 
must die, without any possibility of averting it. They frequently say: 
"Such a one was weighed on the path and made to be light." They 
always ascribe life and death to God's unerring and particular provi- 
dence. 

Contrary to the usage of all the ancient heathen world, they not only 
name God by several strong compounded appellations, expressive of 
many of His divine attributes, but likewise say yah, at the beginning of 
their religious dances, with a bowing posture of the body — then they 
sing y, y,y, ho, ho, ho, he, he, and repeat the sacred notes (but not the 
whole name) on every religious occasion. The religious attendants 
calling to Yah, to enable them to supplicate, seems to point to the 
Hebrew custom of pronouncing yah, which signifies the Divine essence. 
It is well known what sacred regard the Jews had to the great four let- 
tered name, scarcely ever to mention it in the whole, but once a year, 
when the high priest went into the holy sanctuary on the day of expia- 
tion of sins. Might not the Indians have copied from them this sacred invo- 
cation, and also their religious forbearance in never m2ntioning the 
whole name but in their sacred sofTgs of praise? Their method of 
invoking the Great Spirit in solemn hymns, with that reverend deport- 
ment, and spending a full breath on each of the first two syllables or let- 
ters of the awful Divine name, has a surprising analogy to the Jewish 
custom, and such as no other nation or people, even with the advantage 
of written records have retained. 

Charlevoix, speaking of the northern Indians, observes: "The greatest 
part of their feasts, their songs, and their dances, appeared to him to 
have their rise from religion, and yet preserve some traces of it. I have 
met with some persons who could not help thinking that our Indians 
were descended from the Jews; and found in everything, some affinity 
between them and the people of God. There is indeed a resemblance in 
some things — as not to use knives at certain meals, and not to break the 



RITES AND CEKKMONIKS. 



143 



bones of the beast that they cat at these times, (and we may add that 
they never eat the part under the lower joint of the thigh, but always 
throw it away.) The separation of their women at certain periods. 
Some persons have heard them, or thought they heard them, pronounce 
the word, hallelujah in their songs. The feast they make at the return 
of their hunters, and of which they must leave nothing, has also been 
taken for a burnt offering, or for the remains of the passover of the 
Israelites; and the rather, they say, because when any one family cannot 
compass his portion, he may get the assistance of his neighbor, as was 
practiced by the people of God, when a family was not sufficient to eat 
the whole paschal lamb." 

The Israelites of old were ordered, by Moses, to fix in the tabernacle 
(as Solomon did afterwards in the temple, all by command of God) 
Cherubim over the mercy seat. The curtains also which lined the walls 
and the veil of the temple, had the like figures upon them. The Cheru- 
bims are said to have represented the name yo-he-wah-clohim, in redeem 
ing lost mankind, and means the similitude of the great and mighty orue, 
whose emblems in the congregational standards were the bull, the lion, 
the man and the eagle. So Ezekiel informs us that the Cherubims were 
uniform, and had these four compounded animal emblems. Every one 
had four faces — appearances, habits and forms. (X chap., 14 — 30 — 22.) 
Each of the Cherubims, according to the prophet, had the head and face 
of a man ; the likeness of an eagle about the shoulders, with expanded 
wings; their necks, manes and breasts resembled those of a lion; and their 
feet those of a bull or calf; the soles of their feet were like a calf's foot. 
(Ezekiel 1,4 — 5 — 6.) "And I looked and beheld a whirlwind come out of 
the North; a great cloud and a fire unfolding itself, and a brightness was 
about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the 
midst of the fire — also out of the midst thereof, the likeness of four living 
creatures. And this was their appearance: They had the likeness of a 
man and every one had four faces, and every one had four wings." &c, 
&c. — 10 verse. "As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face 
of a man and the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the 
face of an ox on the left side; and they four had also the face of an eagle." 
— Vide, verse 11. These are the terrestial Cherubims, and the Psalmist 



144 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



represents them as the chariot of Divine majesty, and displays His trans- 
cendant and glorious title of King of Kings. (Psalms XVIII, 7 — 11.) 
"God sitting between and rideth upon the Cherubim" as a Divine chariot. 
—Ibid XCIX, 1. 

So the American Indians, particularly the Cherokees and Chocktaws, 
-have some very humble representatives of these cherubimical figures, 
in their places of worship, or beloved squares; where through a strong 
religious principle, they dance almost every winter's night, always 
in a bowing posture, and frequently singing halleluyah, yo He, Wah. 
'They have in these places of worship, which Adair says he has seen, two 
white painted eagles, carved out of poplar wood, with their wings 
-stretched out, and raised five feet from the ground, standing in the cor- 
ner, close to the red and white imperial seat; N and on the inner side of 
each of the notched pieces of wood, where the eagles stand, the Indians 
frequently paint, with a white chalky clay, the figure of a man, with 
buffalo's horns,* and that of a panther, the nearest animal in America, to 
that of the lion, with the same color. These figures are painted afresh 
at the first fruit offering, or the annual expiation of sins. Yet it has 
never been known that the Indians ever substitute the eagle, pan- 
ther or the similitude of anything whatever, as objects of Divine ado- 
ration, in the room of the great invisible Divine essence. Nay, they often 
.give large rewards for killing an eagle, and they kill the panther wher- 
ever they find him. 

The idea a people form of the supreme Deity, will dissect the nature of 
their religious worship. Among the Southern Indians Ish-to-hoolo is an 
appelation for God. It points to the greatness, purity and goodness of 
the Creator informing man. It is derived, as is said, from lshto, (great) 
which you find in all the prophetical writings, attributed to God. Also 
from the present tense of the infinitive mood of the active verb ahoolo, I 
love, and from the preter tense of the passive verb hoolo, that is sanctifying, 
sanctified, Divine or holy. Women set apart, they term hoolo, that is 
sanctifying themselves to Ish-to-hoolo. So Netakhoolo signifies a sancti- 
fied or holy day. So Okka hoolo, water sanctified. Thus Ish-to-hoolo, 



*It was an ancient custom amongst the Eastern nations, to use the horns as an emblem of power, which 
•the Indians alwayi do. 



RITKS AXI) CERKMONIKS. 



when applied to God, in its true radical meaning, imports th \ 
beloved holy cause, which is exceedingly comprehensive and more 
expressive of the true nature of God, than the Hebrew name Adonai, 
which may be applicable to a human being. When they apply the epi- 
thet compounded to any of their own religious men. it signifies the great, 
holy, beloved, sanctified man of the Holy One. 

They make the Divine name point yet more strongly to the supreme 
Author of nature. For as abba signifies father, so, to distinguish God as 
the King of kings, by His attributes from their own Minggo Ishto, or 
great chief, they frequently name God Minggo Ishto Abba, Ishto Abba, 
Minggo Abba, and when they strive to move the passions, Ishto Hoolo 
Abba. They have another more sacred appellative, which with them 
is the essential name of God. The tetragrammanaton of the Hebrews, or 
the great four lettered name already mentioned, T. O. He Wah. This 
they, like the Hebrews, never mention altogether in common speech. Of 
the time and place, when and where they mention it, they are very par- 
ticular, and always with a solemn air. 

The Indians have among them orders of men answering to our proph- 
ets and priests. In the Muskohge language hitch lalagc signifies cunning 
men, or persons prescient of futurity, much the same as the Hebrew seer. 
But the Indians, in general, call their pretended prophets loa-che, men 
resembling the holy fire, or elohi?n. Their tradition says, their forefathers 
were possessed of an extraordinary Divine spirit, by which they foretold 
things of the future, and controled the common course of nature; and this 
they transmitted to their offspring, provided they obeyed the sacred laws 
annexed to it. They believe that by the communication of the same 
Divine fire working in their loa-che they can yet effect the like. But they 
say it is out of reach of nana ookproo, or bad people, either to comprehend 
or perform such things, because the holy spirit of fire will not co-operate 
with, or actuate hottuch ookproo, the accursed people. 

"A sachem of the Mingo tribe, being observed to look at the great 
comet which appeared the first day of October, one thousand six hundred 
and eighty, was asked what he thought was the meaning of that pro- 
digious appearance? answered gravely: 'It signifies that we Indians shall 
melt away, and this country be inhabited by another people.' " — Smith's 



146 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



New Jersey, 136, in a note. How this Indian came by this knowledge, 
without the learned Whiston's astronomical tables, or whether he had 
any knowledge, is not so material. He will, however, be allowed as good 
a right to pretend to it, when the event is considered, as the other had in 
his conjectures concerning the cause of Noah's flood. At all events, this 
Indian must have reasoned well, and had pretty clear conceptions of the 
effects that would naturally follow such causes. 

Mr. Beatty gives much the same account of their prophets among the 
Delaware nations or tribes, above one hundred and eighteen years ago. 
They consult the prophets upon any extraordinary occasion — as in great 
or uncommon sickness, or mortality, &c. "This," he says "seems to be in 
imitation of the Jews of old, inquiring of their prophets. Ishto hoolo is 
the name of all their great beloved men, and the pontifical office descends 
by inheritency to the eldest." 

It cannot be expected but that the dress of the old Indian high-priest, or 
rather their great beloved man, or the first and oldest among the beloved 
men, should be different from that of the high-priest of the Jews. The 
poverty and distressed condition of the Indians renders such a conformity 
impossible; but notwithstanding the cases of agreement are really aston- 
ishing, considering their circumstances, and their having no means of 
knowing what it was, but by tradition, being deprived of all records rela- 
tive to it. 

Before the Indian archi-magus, or high-priest, officiates in making the 
supposed holy fire, for the yearly atonement of sin, as will soon be shown 
he clothes himself with a white garment resembling the ephod of the 
Jews, feeing made of a finely dressed deer or doe skin, and is a waist coat 
without sleeves. When he enters on the solemn duty, a beloved attend- 
ant spreads a white dressed buckskin* on the white seat, which stands 
close to the supposed holiest division of their place of worship, and then 
puts some white beads on it, that are offered by the people. Then the 
archi magus wraps round his shoulders a consecrated skin of the same 
sort, which reaching across under his arms, he ties behind his back, with 
two knots on his legs, in the form of a figure eight. In c tead of going 

* When the high-priest of the Jews wont into the holy of the holies, on the day of expiations, he clothed 
himself in white; and when the services wers over, he left those clothes in the tabernacle.— Levit XVI, 
3—23. 



i 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



117 



barefoot he wears a new pair of white buckskin nlocasins, made by him- 
self ami sewed with the sinews of the animal. lie paints the upper part 
of them across the toes, with a lew streaks of red, made of the red root, 
which is their symbol of holy things as vermilion is of war. These shoes 
he never wears at any other time, and leas es them with the other parts of 
his pontifical dress, when the servises are over, in the beloved place. 

In resemblance of the sacred breast plate, the Americans wear a breast 
plate made of a white conk-shell, with two holes borne in the middle of 
it, through which he puts the ends of an otter skin strap, and fastens a 
white buck's-horn button to the outside of each, as if in imitation of the 
precious stones of urim and thumim, which miraculously blazed on the 
high-priest's breast, the unerring words of the Divine oracle. Instead of 
the plate of gold which he wore on his forehead, with the words holy, or 
separated to God, the Indian wears around his temples either a wreath of 
swan's feathers, or a large piece of swan-skin doubled, so as only the fine 
snowy down appears on each side. And in likeness of the tiara of the 
former, the latter wears on the crown of his head a tuft of white feathers, 
which they call yaterah, but the meaning of the word is not known. He 
also fastens a number of blunted w T ild turkey cock's spurs towards the 
toes of his mocasins, as if in resemblence of the bells which the Jewish 
high-priest wore on his coat of blue. 

Bartram assures us: "There is in every town or tribe, a high-priest, 
usually nick-named by the white people, the juggler or conjurer, besides 
several of inferior rank. But that the oldest high-priest or seer presides 
always in spiritual things, and is a person of great consequence. He 
maintains and exercises great influence in the state, particularly in mili- 
tary affairs; their senate or great council never determining on an expedi- 
tion without his counsel and assistance. These people believe most 
firmly that their seer or high-priest has communion with powerful invisi- 
ble spirits, whom they suppose have some share in the rule and govern- 
ment of human affairs, as well as in that of the elements. He furthrr 
adds, that these Indians are by no means idolaters, unless their puffing 
the tobacco smoke towards the sun, and rejoicing at the appearance of 
the new moon, may be termed so.* So far from idolatry are they that 

* It is rather supposed that they use the smoke of the sacred stem or pipe, as the Jews did their incense— 
and as to the new moon, as they reckon their time by it, they areas careful obserTors of it as the Jews 
were. 



148 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



they have no images among them, nor any religious rite or ceremony 
relating to them, that I could ever percieve. 

"They adore the Great Spirit, the giver and the taker away of the 
breath of life, with the most profound and respectful homage. They 
believe in a future state where the spirit exists, which they call 
the world of spirits, where they enjoy different degrees of tranquility and 
comforts agreeable to their life spent here. They hold their beloved 
man or priest in great respect, and pay strict obedience to what he 
directs." 

These religiously beloved men are also supposed to be in great favor 
with the Deity, and able to procure rain when they please. In this 
respect also, we may observe a great conformity to the practice of the 
Jews. Their records inform us that in the moon Abib or Nisan, they 
prayed for the spring or later rains to be so seasonable and sufficient as to 
give them a good harvest; and the Indians have a tradition that their 
forefathers sought for and obtained such seasonable rains, as gave them 
plentiful crops continually; and they now seek them, in a manner agreea- 
ble to a shadow of this tradition. 

In the year 1747, a Natchez, warrior told Adair that while one of their 
prophets was using his Divine invocations for rain, he was killed by thun- 
der on the spot; upon which account the spirit of prophecy ever after 
subsided among them, and he became the last of their reputed prophets. 
They believe that the Holy Spirit of fire had killed him with some of His 
angry darting fire, for wilful impurity; and by His threatening voice for- 
bade them to renew the like attempt; and justly concluded that if they all 
lived well, they should fare well and have proper seasons. This opinion 
coincides with that of the Hebrews, who esteemed thunder-struck indi- 
viduals as under the displeasure of heaven, and they also observed and 
enforced such rules of external piety as none of the nations observed 
except the Hebrews. 

As the Jewish prophets had oracular answers for their prayers, so the 
Indian prophets who invoke yo-he-wah and medicate with supreme holy 
fire, that he may give seasonable rains, have a transparent stone of sup- 
posed great power in assisting to bring down the rain, when it is put into a 
basin of water agreeable to a reputed divine virtue impressed on one of 



X 



RITES AM) CEREMONIES. 149 

the like sort, in times of old, which communicates it circulary. This 
stone would sutler great injury, as they assert, were it even seen 
bv their own Laity; but it by foreigners, it would be utterly despoiled of 
its divine communicative power. This looks something like a tradition of 
the blazing stones of Urim and Thumim. As the Jews had a sanctum 
sanctorum, or the most holy place in their tabernacle and temple, so have 
all the Indian nations, particularly the Muskogee nation. It is parti- 
tioned oft' by a mud wall, about breast high, between the white seat which 
always stands on the left of the red painted war seat. There they deposit 
their consecrated vessels and supposed holy utensils, none of the laity 
daring to approach the sacred place for fear of particular damage to 
themselves, and a general hurt to the people, from the supposed divinity 
of the place. 

According to Mr. Bartram, the great or public square of the southern 
towns, generally stands alone, in the center and highest part of the town. 
It consists of four square or cubical buildings of one story high — uniform 
and of the same dimensions, so situated as to form an exact tetragon, 
encompassing an area of half an acre of ground, more or less, according 
to the strength and size of the town, or will of the inhabitants. One of 
these buildings is the council-house, where all the public business is done. 
Another of these buildings is different from all the rest. It is closely shut 
up on three sides, and has a partition wall run through it, longitudinally 
from end to end, dividing it into two apartments; the back part is dark 
having only three small arched apertures or holes opening into it from the 
front apartment, and are but just sufficient for a man to get in at. This 
secluded place appears to be designed as a sanctuary or sacred part 
of the temple, and it is said among them to be death for any person but 
the Mico, or high -priest, to enter into it, and none are ever admitted, 
unless by permission of the priests who guard it night and day. Here 
are deposited all the sacred things, as the physic-pot, rattles, chaplets, 
eagle's tail, calumet or sacred stem, the pipe of peace, etc. But chil- 
dren and females are never admitted. 

At this time the people of the town were feasting, taking medicine and 
praying to avert a grievous calamity of sickness which then afflicted 
them. They fasted seven or eight days, during which they neither eat 



150 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



or drank anything but a meager gruel made of corn flour and water, at 
the same time drinking their black or physic, which acts as a severe 
emetic. 




HE Indians, in general, keep the following religious fasts 
and festivals: 

1. The Feast of First Fruits, and after it, on the even- 
ing of the same day, one something like the Passover. 

2. The Hunter's Feast, like that of Pentecost. 

3. The Feast of Harvest and the day of expiation of 
sin. 

4. A Daily Sacrifice. 

5. A Feast of Love. 

FIRST. THEIR FEAST OF FIRST FRUITS AND PASSOVER. 

Mr. Penn, who found them perfectly in a state of nature, and wholly 
a stranger to their manners and characters, and who could not have had 
any knowledge of them but from what he saw and heard for some 
months he remained with them, on his first visit to this country, informs 
his friends in England, in one of his first letters, in 1683: 

"I consider these poor people as in a dark night in things relating to 
religion; yet they believed in a God, and immortality, without the help 
of metaphysics, for they informed me that there was a Great King who 
made them; and that the souls of the good will go thither, where they 
shall live again. Their worship consists of two parts — -sacrifice and can- 





152 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 



tico. The first is with their first fruits. The first and fattest buck they 
kill goeth to the fire, where he is all burnt with a doleful ditty of him 
who performs the ceremony, but with such fervency and labor of body, 
that he will even sweat to a foam." 

The other part is their cantico, performed by round dances, 
sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts; two are in the middle, 
who begin, and by singing and drumming on a board, direct the chorus. 
This is done with equal earnestness and labor, but with a great appear- 
ance of joy. In the fall when the corn cometh in they begin to feast one 
another. There have been two great feasts already, to which all come 
who will. Mr. Penn was at one himself: "Their entertainment was at 
a great seat by a spring under some shady trees. It consisted of twenty 
bucks, with hot cakes made of new corn, with both wheat and beans, 
which they make up in a square form, in the leaves of the corn, and then 
bake them in the ashes; they then fall to dancing. But all who go to this 
feast must take a small present in their money, it might be but six pence , 
which is made of bones of fish. The black is with them as gold, and the 
white as silver. They call it wampum." 

Afterwards speaking of their agreements with the Hebrews, he says: 
"They reckon by moons; they offer their first fruits; they have a kind of 
feast of tabernacles; they are said to lay their altars upon twelve stones; 
they mourn a year; they have a separation of women, with many other 
things that do not now occur. 

From Mr. Adair the following account, or rather abstract, of his account 
of the feast and fast of what they may call their Passover, and Feast of 
First Fruits, is made: 

"On the day appointed (which was, among the Jews, generally in the 
spring, answering to our March and April, when their barley was ripe, 
being the first month of their ecclesiastical, and the seventh of 'their civil 
year, and among the Indians as soon as their first spring produce comes 
in) while the sanctified new fruits are dressed, six old beloved women 
come to their temple, or sacred wigwam of worship, and .dance the 
beloved dance with joyful hearts. They observe a solemn procession as 
they enter the holy ground, or beloved square, carrying in one hand a 
bundle of small branches of various green trees; when they are joined by 



AND RELIGIOUS OIMXIOXS. 



the same number of beloved old men, who carry a cane in one band, 
adorned with white feathers, having green boughs in the other hand. 

Their heads arc dressed with white plumes, and the women in their finest 
clothes and anointed with deer's grease or oil, having also small tortoise 
shells and white pebbles fastened to a piece of white dressed deer skin, 
which is tied to each of their legs. The eldest of the beloved men, leads 
the sacred dance, at the head of the innermost row, which, of course, is 
next to the Holv fire. He begins the dance, after once going round the 
Holv lire, in solemn and religious silence. He then, in the next circle, 
invokes Ya1i\ after the usual manner, on a bass key, with a short accent. 
In another circle he sings /io, ho, which is repeated by all the religious 
procession, till they finish that circle. Then in another round, they repeat 
he, he, in like manner, in regular notes, and keeping time in the dance. 
Another circle is continued in like manner, while repeating the word 
Wah, wak, (making in the whole, the Divine and Holy name Yah Ho He 
Wah.) A little after this is finished, which takes considerable time, they 
begin it again, going fresh rounds. $Sn&\nghal-hal-le-le-hi-lii-yah-yah,\n like 
manner; and frequently the whole train strikes up hallelu, hallelu, hallu- 
yah, hallchtyah, with great earnestness, fervor and joy, while each strikes 
the ground with the right and left foot alternately, very quick, but well 
timed. Then a kind of hollow sounding drum joins the sacred choir, 
which excites the old female singers to chant forth their grateful hymn 
and praise the Divine Spirit, and to redouble their quick, joyful steps, in 
imitation of the leader of the beloved men, at their head. 

This appears very similar to the Hebrews, and may we not reasonably 
suppose that they formerly understood the Psalms and Divine hymns, at 
least those which begin or end with hallelujah; otherwise how came it to 
pass that all the extensive regions of North and South America have and 
retain these very expressive Hebrew words, and repeat them so distinctly 
applying them after the manner of the Hebrews in their religious accla- 
mations. 

On other religious occasions, and at their Feast of Love, they sing ale- 
yo, ale-yo, which is the Divine name by the attribute of amnipotence. 
They likewise sing hc-wah, hc-wah, which is the immortal soul, drawn 
from the Divine essential name, as deriving its faculties from ho-hc-ivah. 



154 THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 

.'41 

Those words of their religious dances they never repeat at any other time 
which has greatly contributed to the loss of their meaning; for it is 
believed they have grown so corrupt, as not now to understand either 
the spiritual or literal meaning of what they sing, any farther than by 
allusion to the name of the Great Spirit. 

In these circuitous dances, they frequently also sing on a bass key 
aluhe, aluhe, aluwah, aluwah. Also, shilu-yo, shilu-yo, shilu-he, 
shilu-he, shilu-wah, shilu-wah, and shilu-hah, shilu-hah.* They trans-, 
pose them also several ways, but with the very same notes. The three 
terminations make up for the four lettered Divine n 

of gladness and joy. The word preceeding it, shilu, seems to express 
the predicted human and Divine, Shiloh who was to be the purifier and 
peace maker. They continue their grateful and Divine hymns for the 
space of fifteen minutes, and then break up. 

As they degenerate they lengthen their dances and shorten the time'of 
their fasts and purifications; insomuch that they have so exceedingly 
corrupted their primitive rites and customs, within the space of the last 
thirty years, (now about one hundred and fifty years) that, at the same 
rate of declension, there will not long be a possibility of tracing their 
origin but by their dialects and war customs. At the end of this notable 
religious dance, the old beloved women return home to hasten the feast of 
the new sacrificed fruits. In the meantime everyone at the temple drinks 
plentifully of the cussena and other bitter liquids, to cleanse their sinful 
bodies, as they suppose. After which they go to some convenient deep 
water, and there, according to the ceremonial law of the Hebrew, they 
wash away their- sins with water They then return with great joy and 
solemn procession singing their notes of praise, till they again enter their 
holy ground, to eat the new delicious fruits, which are brought to the 
outside of the square by the old beloved women. They all behave so 
modestly and are possessed of such an extraordinary constancy and equi- 
nimity in pursuit of their religious mysteries, that they do not show the 
least outward emotion of pleasure at the first sight of the sanctified new 
fruits. If one of them shuold act in a contrary manner, they would say 

*Cruden, in his Concordance, says: "All Christian commentators agree, that the word Shiloh ought to be 
understood of the Messiah, of^Jesus Christ. Jerome translates it by qxii met bendts est. He who is to be sent 
and manifestly reads Shiloach sent instead of Shiloh." 



AND RKLKilOUS OPINIONS 



155 



to him cln-liiksct-Kanalia. — You resemble such as were beat in Kanaha. 
Formerly on the north side of the Susquehannah river, in Pennsylvania, 
were some old Indian towns, called Kanaa, now about one hundred and 
fifty years ago, there was a remnant of a nation, or a subdivided tribe of 
Indians, called A a naa/, which greatly resembles the Hebrew word Canaan 

Mr. Smith, in his History of New Jersey, speaking of the Indians in 
the year 16S1, says: ''Very little can be said as to their religion. They 
are thought to believe in a god and immortality, and seem to aim at pub- 
lic worship. When they did this, they sometimes sat in several circles, 
one within another. The action consisted of singing, jumping, shouting 
and dancing; but mostly performed rather as something handed down 
from their ancestors, than from any knowledge or inquiry into the serious 
parts of its origin. They said that the Great King who made them, dwelt 
in a glorious country to the southward, and the spirits of the best should 
go there and live again. Their most solemn worship was the sacrifice of 
the First Fruits, in which they burnt the first and fattest buck, and 
feasted together on whatever they had collected. But in this sacrifice 
they broke no bones of any creature they eat. When done they gathered 
the bones and buried them very carefully; these have since been fre- 
quently ploughed up." — Page 140. 

Among the Indians on the northwest side of the Ohio, the Feast of the 
First Fruits is thus described by the Rev. Dr. Charles Beatty, who was an 
eye witness of the ceremony: "Before they make use of any of the first 
or spring fruits of the ground, twelve of their old men meet, and a deer 
and some of the first fruits are provided. The deer is divided into twelve 
parts, according to the number of the men, and the corn beaten in a mor- 
tar and prepared for use by boiling or baking in cakes under the ashes, 
and ofcourse unleavened. This is also divided into twelve parts. Then 
these men hold up the venison and first fruits, and pray with their faces 
to the east, acknowledging, as he supposed, the goodness and bounty of 
heaven towards them. It is then eaten; after which they freely enjoy the 
fruits of the earth. 

On the evening of the same day, they have another public feast, 
besides that of the First Fruits, which looks somewhat like the Passover; 
when a great quantity of venison is provided, with other things, dressed 



156 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 



in the usual way, and distributed to all the guests, of which they eat freely 
that evening; but that which is left is thrown into the fire and burned, as 
none of it must remain till sun-rise the next day, nor must a bone of the 
venison be broken." 

The writer of these sheets has made great use of Mr. Adair's History 
of the Indians, which renders it necessary that something further should 
be said of him. Sometime about the year 1774 or 1775, Mr. Adair came 
to Elizabethtown, where the writer then lived, with his manuscript, and 
applied to Mr. Livingston, afterward governor of the State of New Jer- 
sey, a correct scholar, well known for his literary abilities and knowl- 
edge of the belle-lettres, requesting him to correct his manuscript for 
him. He brought ample recommendations and gave a good account of 
himself. 

Our political troubles then increasing, Mr. Adair, who was on his way 
to Great Britain, was advised not to risk being detained from his voyage 
till the work could be critically examined, but to go off as soon as possi- 
ble. He accordingly took passage on the first vessel that was bound for 
England. 

As soon as the war was over, the writer sent to London and obtained 
a copy of the work. After reading it with care, he strictly examined a 
gentleman, then a member with him in Congress, of excellent character, 
who had acted as our Indian agent to the southward during the war, (with- 
out letting him know the design) and from him found all the leading 
facts mentioned herein, fully confirmed, by his own personal knowl- 
edge. 

THE FEAST OF WEEKS, OR THE HUNTER'S FEAST, OR PENTECOST. 

An ancient missionary who lived a long time with the Outaowaies, has 
written, that among these savages, an old man performs the office of a 
priest at the feasts. That they begin by giving thanks to the Great 
Spirit for the success of the chase or hunting time. Then another takes 
a cake, breaks it in two, and casts it in the fire. This was upwards of 
eighty years ago. 

Dr. Beatty says that once in a year some of the tribes of Indians 
beyond the Ohio, choose from among themselves twelve men, who go out 



AM) RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 



L57 



Ind provide twelve deer; and each of them cuts a small sapling, from 
Which they strip the bark to make a tent, bv Sticking one end in the 
ground, bending the tops over one another, and covering the poles with 
blankets. Then the twelve choose, each of them, a stone, which they 
make hot in the tire, and place them together alter the manner ofan altar, 
within the tent, and burn the fat of the inside of the deer thereon.* At 
the time they are making this offering, the men within cry to the Indians 
without, who attend as worshippers, "we pray or praise." They without' 
answer, "we hear." Then those in the tent cry ho-liah, very loud and 
long, which appeared to be something in sound like halle-lujah. After, 
the fat was thus offered some tribes burned tobacco, cut fine upon the same 
stones, supposed in imitation of incense. Other tribes choose only ten 
men, who provided but ten deer, ten saplings or poles, and ten stones. 

The southern Indians observe another religious custom of the Hebrews 
as Adair asserts, by offering a sacrifice of gratitude, if they have been 
successful, and have all returned safe home. But if they have lost any in 
war, they generally decline it, because they imagine by some neglect of 
duty, they are impure; then they only mourn their vicious conduct which 
defiled the ark and thereby occasioned the loss. 

Like the Israelites, they believe their sins are the procuring cause of 
all their evils, and that the divinity in the ark will always bless the most 
religious party with the best success. This is their invariable sentiment, 
and is the sole reason for mortifying themselves in so severe a manner 
while they are out at war; living very scantily, even in a buffalo range, 
under a strict rule, lest by luxury their hearts should grow evil, and give 
occasion to mourn. 

The Rev. Dr. Beatty, who went into the Delaware nation so long ago, 
informed the writer of this that he was present when there was a great 
meeting of the nation, consulting on a proposition for going to war with 
a neighboring nation. At this time they killed a buck and roasted it, as 
a kind of sacrifice, on twelve stones, on which they would not suffer 
any tool or instrument to be used. That they did not eat the middle 
joint of the thigh. In short he assured the writer, that he was astonished 

* Thou shalt sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and shalt hum their fat for an effering made hy fire, for 
a sweet savor unto the Lord.— Numb. XVI11, 17. - 



158 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 



to find so many Jewish customs prevailing among them, and began to 
conclude that there was some affinity between them and the Jews. 

The Muskogee Indians sacrifice a piece of every deer they kill at their 
hunting camps, or near home. If the latter^ they dip their middle fin- 
ger in the broth, and sprinkle it over the domestic tombs of their dead, to 
keep them out of the power of evil spirits, according to their mythology. 
This seems to proceed from a traditional knowledge, though corrupt, of 
the Hebrew law of sprinkling with blood. 

Charlevoix informs us that to be esteemed a good hunter among the 
northern Indians, a man must fast three days together, without taking the 
least nourishment, having his face smeared with black all the time. When 
the fast is over, the candidate sacrifices to the Great Spirit a piece of each 
of the beasts he intends to hunt. This is commonly called the tongue 
and muzzle, which at other times are the hunter's peculiar share, to feast 
his friends and strangers with. His family and relatives do not touch 
them, and they would as soon die with hunger as to eat any of them. 

Though the Indians in general believe the upper heavens are inhab- 
ited by Ishto-hoolo Aba, and a great multitude of inferior good spirits, 
yet they are firmly persuaded that the Divine Omnipresent Spirit, of fire 
and light, resides also on earth, in their annual ^sacred fire while it is 
unpolluted, and that he kindly accepts their lawful offerings, if their 
own conduct is agreeable to the old divine law which was delivered to 
their forefathers. The former notion of the Deity is agreeable to those 
natural ima'ges with which the Divine penmen through all the prophetic 
writings have drawn of To, He, Wah, Elohim. When God was 
pleased with Aaron's offering, the holy fire descended and .consumed the 
burnt offering on the altar, &c. Throughout the Old Testament, this 
was an emblematic token of the Divine presence, and the smoke of the 
victims ascending towards heaven, is represented as a sweet savor to 
God; and the incense from the altar is emblematic of the prayers of the 
saints. And God is said in Scripture to be a consuming fire. (Dieut. IV, 
24.) He showed himself to the prophets David, Ezekiel, and to his 
apostle John, in the midst of fire. (Psalms CIV, 4; Ezekiel, II, 4; Daniel 
VII, 9, and Acts II, 3.) God also appeared surrounded by aflame of fire 
at the burning bush. And when descending on Mount Sinai, the moun- 



AM) RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 



i r><> 



tain appeared enveloped in flaming fire. (Exodus III, 2, XIX, iS ) The 
people who had lived so long apart from the rest of mankind, are not to 
be wondered at if they have forgotten the meaning and end of their sac- 
rifices. They are rather to be pitied for their seeming to believe, like 
the ignorant part of the Israelites of old, that the virtue is either in the 
form of offering the sacrifice, or in the Divinity, who they imagine 
resides on earth, in the sacred annual fire; likewise, for having forgotten 
that the blessing was not the outward sign, but in the thing signified or 
typified by that sign. 

THE FEAST OF HARVEST AND DAY OF EXPIATION OF SIN. 

We shall now proceed to their most solemn feast and fast, answerable 
to the Jewish Feast of Harvest and Expiation of Sin. 

The Indians formerly observed this grand festival of the annual expia- 
tion of sin, and the offering of the first fruits of the harvest at the begin- 
ning of the first new moon in which their corn became full eared, as we 
learn from Adair. But for many years they are regulated by the season 
of their harvest. Yet they are skillful in observing the revolutions of the 
moon, as the Israelites ever were, at least till the end of the first temple. 
For during that period, instead of measuring time by astronomical calcu- 
lations, they knew it only by the phases of the moon. 

In like manner the Indians annually observed their festivals and Nec- 
tak- Ya-ah, or days of afflicting themselves before the Great Spirit, at a 
prefiixed time of a certain moon. 

According to Charlevoix, the harvest among the Natchez on the Mis- 
sissippi, is in common. The great chief fixes the day for the beginning 
of the festival of the harvest, which lasts three days, spent in sporting 
and feasting. Each private person contributes something of his hunting, 
his fishing and his other provisions, as maize, beans and melons. The 
great chief presides at the feast; all the sachems are round him in a 
respectful posture. The lasf day, the chief makes a speech to the assembly. 
He exhorts every one to be exact in the performance of his duties, espe- 
cially to have a great veneration for the spirit that resides in the temple, 
and to be careful in instructing their children. 

The fathers of families never fail to bring into the temple the first 
fruits of the harvest, and of everything (hat they gather, and they do the 



160 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 



same by all the presents that are made to their nation. They expose 
them at the door of the temple, the keeper of which, after presenting 
them to the spirit, carries them to the king, who distributes them to 
whom he pleases. The seeds are in like manner offered before the tem- 
ple with great ceremony. But the offerings which are made of bread 
and flour every new moon, are for the use of the keepers of the 
temple. 

As the offering of the fruits of the harvest precede a long strict fast of 
two nights and a day, they gormandize such a prodigious quantity of 
strong food, as to enable them to keep inviolate the succeeding fast. The 
feast lasts only from morning till sunset. 

As we have already seen, this feast with the Hebrews began in the 
month of Tizri, which means the first month of the civil year, answerable 
to our September and October. The feast took place previous to the 
great day of expiation, which was the tenth day of the month. So the 
Indian corn being generally full eared and fit to eat about this time, they 
are not very far.from the time directed in the Mosaic appointment for 
keeping it. 

Their feast being over, some of their people are carefully employed in 
putting their temple in propor order for the annual expiation, while 
others are painting the white cabin and the supposed holiest with white 
clay ; for it is a sacred and peaceable place, and white is its emblem. 
Others of an inferior order are covering all the seats of the beloved square 
with new mattresses, made out of fine splinters of long canes, tied 
together with flags. Several are busy sweeping the temple, clearing 
out of it every supposed polluted thing, and carrying out the ashes from 
the hearth, which perhaps had not been cleaned out but a few times 
since the last year's annual offering. Everything being thus prepared, 
the chief beloved man or high-priest, orders some of his religious attend- 
ants to dig up the old hearth or altar, and to sweep out the remains, that 
by chance might either be left or drop down. He then puts a few roots 
of the button-snake root, with some green leaves of an uncommon small 
sort of tobacco, and a little of the new fruits, at the bottom of the fire- 
place, which he orders to be covered up with white marley clay, a 
wetted with clean water. Immediately the magi or priests, order a thick 



AM) KKLKiKM'S <)1M\ ION'S. 



1C>1 



arbor to be made over the altar with green branches of the various young 
trees, which the warriors had designedly chosen and laid down on the 
outside of the supposed holy ground. The, women in the interim are 
busy at home, clearing out their houses, putting out all the old fire, 
renewing the old heal ths, and cleansing all their culinary vessels, that they 
may he fit to receive the pretended holy fire, and the sanctified new 
fruits, according to the purity of the law, lest by an improper conduct, 
they should incur damage in life, health, or future crops, etc. 

It is fresh in the memory of the old traders, as we are assured by those 
who have lived long with them, that formerly- none of those numerous 
nations of Indians would eat, or even handle any part of the new harvest 
till some of it had been offered up at the yearly festival by their beloved 
man or high priest, or those of his appointment at their plantations,* 
although the light harvest of the past year should almost have forced 
them to give to thier women and children of the ripening fruits to sustain 
life. 

But they are visibly degenerating more and more, both in this and every 
other religious observance, except what concerns war; yet their magi 
and old warriors live contentedly on such harsh food as nature affords 
them in the woods, rather than transgress the divine precept given to 
the forefathers. 

Having everything in order for the sacred solemnity, the religious 
waiters carry off the remains of the feast, and lay them on the outside of 
the square. Others of an inferior order, carefully sweep out the smallest 
crumbs, for fear of polluting the first fruit offering, and before sunset, the 
temple must be cleared, even of every kind of vessel or utensil that had 
contained anything, or had been used for any kind of provision during 
the past year. 

Now one of the waiters proclaims with a loud voice, for all the war- 
riors and beloved men, whom the purity of their law admits, to come and 
enter the beloved square and observe the fast. He also exhorteth the 
women and children, with those who have not been innitiated in war. to 
keep apart, according to the law. 

* Vid. Luke VI, 1 relating to the second Sabbath but not the seventh day Sabbath; it was the day of offer- 
ing up the first fruits, before which it was not lawful to eat of the harvest. 



162 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 



Four sentinels are now placed, one at each corner of the holy square, to 
keep out every living creature as impure, except the religious order, and 
the warriors, who are not known to have violated the law of the first 
fruit offering, and that of marriage, since the last year's expiation. They 
observe the fast till the rising of the second sun; and be they ever so 
hungry in that sacred interval, the healthy warriors deem the duty so 
awful, and disobedience so inexpressibly vicious, that no temptation 
would induce them to violate it. They at the same time drink plentifully 
of a decoction of the button-snake root, in order to vomit and cleanse 
their sinful bodies. 

When we consider their earnest invocation of the divine essence in 
this solemnity — that they never apply this root except on religious occa- 
sions — that they frequently drink it to such an excess as to impair their 
health; and take into consideration its well known property of curing the 
bite of the rattle-snake, must not it be concluded, that this has some refer- 
ence to the bite of the old serpent in Eden, or the serpent lifted up in the 
wilderness? 

In the general fast, the children and men of weak constitutions are 
allowed to eat as soon as they are certain that the sun has begun to 
decline from his meridian altitude. This seems to be founded on the 
principle of mercy before sacrifice, and the snake-root used by those in 
the temple, and the bitter green tobacco, which is eaten by the women 
and those too wicked to be admitted to the fast held therein, seem to 
point to eating the paschal lamb with bitter herbs. 

Being great lovers of ripe fruit, and as yet only tantalized by the sight 
of them, this may with justice, be said to be a fast to afflict their souls, 
and be a sufficient trial for their religious principles. At the end of this 
solemn fast, the women, by the voice of a crier bring to the outside of the 
holy square, plenty of the old year's food newly dressed, which they 
lay down and immediately return home. The waiters then go, and 
reaching their hands over the holy ground, they bring the provisions and 
set, them down before the famished multitude. They think it wholly out 
of order to show any joy or gladness at the end of their religious duties. 
They are as strict observers of their set forms, as the Israelites were of 
those they received from Divine appointment. As soon as the sun is 
visibly declining from the meridian the third day of the fast, the chief 



AND REEKIKH'S OPINIONS. 



163 



beloved man orders a religious attendant to cry aloud to the crowded 
town that the holy fire is to be brought out for the sacred altar, command- 
ing every person to stay within his house, as becomes the beloved people, 
without doing the least bad thing; and be sure to extinguish every spark 
of the old fire, otherwise the Divine fire will bite them severely. 

Now everything is hushed. Nothing but silence all around. The 
great beloved man and his beloved warriors, rising up with a reverend 
carriage, steady countenance and composed behavior, go into the beloved 
plaee, or holiest, to bring out the beloved fire. The former takes a piece 
of dry poplar, willow or white-oak, and having cut a hole, but not so 
deep as to reach through it; he then sharpens another piece, and placing 
that in the hole, and between his knees, he drills it briskly for several 
minutes, till it begins to smoke; or by rubbing two pieces together for a 
quarter of an hour, fie collects by friction the hidden fire, which they 
all consider as proceeding from the Holy Spirit of fire. 

They then cherish it with chips, till it glows into a flame, by using a 
fan of the unsullied wing of a swan. On this the beloved man brings out 
the fire, in an old earthern vessel, and lays it on the altar, which is under 
an arbor, thick-wove on top with green boughs.* They rejoice exceed- 
ingly at this appearance of the reputed holy fire, as it is supposed to atone 
for all their past crimes, except murder. Although the people without 
may well know what is doing within, yet by order, a crier informs them 
of the glad tidings, and orders a beloved old woman to pull a basket full 
of the new ripened fruits, and bring them to the beloved square. As she 
is prepared for the occasion she readily obeys, and soon lays it down at 
the corner thereof. Then the fire-maker rises from his white seat, and 
walks northward three times round the holy fire, with a slow pace, and 
in a sedate and grave manner, stopping now and then, and saying some 
old ceremonial words with a low voice and a rapidity of expression, 
which none understand but a few of the beloved old men, who equally 
secrete their religious mysteries, that they may not be profaned. He then 
takes a little of each sort of the new fruits, rubs some bear's oil over them 
and offers them up, together with some flesh, to the bountiful spirit of 



•Even among the Romans, if the sacred fire at any time happens to he extinguished, it could only ho 
lighted again at the rays of the sun. 



164 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 



fire, as a fruit offering and an annual oblation for sin. Pie likewise pours 
a little of a strong decoction of the button-snake root, and of the cusseena, 
into the pretended holy fire. He then purifies the red and white seats 
with those bitter liquids, and sits down. All culprits may now come 
forth from their hiding places, dressed in their finest clothes, to pay their 
thanks, at an awful distance, to the forgiving sacred fire. Orders are now 
given to call the women to come for the sacred fire. They gladly obey. 
The great beloved man, or high priest, addresses the men and women; 
giving all the particular, positive injunctions and negative precepts they 
yet retain of the ancient law. He uses very sharp language to the women. 
He then addresses the whole multitude. He enumerates the crimes they 
have committed, great and small, and bids them look at the holy fire 
which has forgiven them. He presses on his audience, by the great 
motives of temporal good and the fear of temporal evil, the necesity of a 
careful observance of the ancient law, assuring them that the holy fire 
will enable their prophtes, the rain-maker, to procure them plentiful har- 
vests, and give their war leaders victory over their enemies. He then 
orders some of the fire to be laid down outside of the holy ground, for all 
the houses of the associated towns, which sometimes lay several miles 
apart.* 

If any are sick at home, or unable to come out, they are allowed one of 
the old consecrated conk-shells full of their sanctifying bitter cusseena, 
carried to them by a beloved old man. This is something like the second 
Passover of the Jews. At the conclusion, the beloved man orders one of 
his religious waiters to proclaim to all the people that the sacred annual 
solemnity is now ended, and every .kind of evil averted from the beloved 
people, according to the old straight beloved speech. They are then 
commanded to paint themselves, and go along with him, according to 

*Dr. Hyde says, that the third state of the Persian religion commenced when, in imitation of the fire pre- 
served upon the altar in the temple at Jerusalem, they kept also a perpetual lire upon an altar. This gave 
occasion to the general conclusion that the ancient Persians worshipped fire; but Dr. Hyde justifies them 
from that imputation. He owns that they regard this fire as a thing sacred, and paid it a kind of service; 
but he denies that they ever paid it a proper adoration. One of their priests said, that they did not pay any 
Divine worship to mithra, which is the sun, or to the moon, or the stare, but only turned towards the sun 
when they prayed, because the nature of it nearly resembled that of fire. They regarded it as an image of 
God, aud some said God resided in it, and others that it would be the seat of the blessed. On the twenty- 
fifth of March all the inhabitants of a Parish in Persia extinguish the fire in their houses, and go to light it 
a gain by the fire of the priest, each paying him about six shillings and three pence, which serves for his 
support. They must have taken this custom from the Jews. 



AM) RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 



L65 



ancient custom. They immediately fly about to grapple up a kind of 
chalkey clay to paint themselves white. They soon appear, all over, as 
white as the clay can make them. Then they follow in an orderly proces- 
sion to purify themselves in running water. The beloved man, or high 
priest, heads the holy train, his waiter next; the beloved men according to 
their seniority ; and the warriors, according to their reputed merit. The 
women follow in the same orderly manner, with all the children who can 
walk, arranged according to their height. The very little ones are carried 
in their mother's arms. In this manner they move along, singing halle- 
luyah to T. O. He-wah, till they get to the water, when the high priest 
jumps into it, and all the train follow him.* Having thus purified them- 
selves, and washed away their sins, as they suppose and verily believe, 
they consider themselves as out of the reach of temporal evil, for their 
past vicious conduct. They now return to the center of the holy ground, 
where, having made a few circles, dancing round the altar, they finish 
their annual great festival, and depart in joy and peace. 

Mr. Bartram, who visited the Southern Indians in 1778, gives 'an 
account of the same feast, but in another nation. He says that the Feast 
of First Fruits is their principal festival. This seems to end the old and 
begin the new 7 ecclesiastical year. It commences when their new crops 
are arrived at maturity. This is their most solemn celebration. f 

When the town celebrates the busk, or first fall fruits, having previously 
provided themselves new clothes, pots, pans and other household utensils 
and furniture, they collect all their worn out clothes and other despicable 
things, sweep and clean their houses, squares, and the whole town, of 
all their filth, which, with all the remaining grain and other old pro- 
visions, they cast together in one common heap, and consume it with fire. 
After taking medicine and fasting for three days, all the fire in the town 
is extinguished. During the fast they abstain from the gratification ot 

* The Indiiin women never perform their religious ablutions in the presence of the men, but purify them- 
selves, not at appointed times, with the men, but at their discretion. They are also entirely excluded from 
their temples, by ancient custom, except the six old beloved women, who are permitted to sing, dance and 
rejoice at the annual expiation for sin; but they must retire before the other solemnities begin. 

So the Hebrew women performed their ablutions, separated from the men, by themselves. They also 
worshipped apart from the men, lest they should .attract each other's attention in Divine worihip. 

t This is plainly the great feast on the day of expiation, and that of harvest, when they offer up their fall 
fruits, and not the spring first fruit feast, and should have been called the new civil year. 

K 



166 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP 



every appetite and passion whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed. 
All malefactors may return to their town, and they are absolved from 
their crimes, which are now forgotten, and they are restored to favor. 
On the fourth morning the high priest or chief beloved man, by rubbing 
dry wood together, produces new fires in the public square, from whence 
every inhabitant in the town is supplied with the new and pure flame. 
Then the women go forth to the harvest fields and bring from thence 
new corn and fruits, which being prepared in the best manner, in various 
dishes, and drinks withall, is brought with solemnity to the square, 
where the people are assembled, appareled in their new clothes and dec- 
orations. The men having regaled themselves, the remainder is carried 
off and distributed among the families of the town. The women and 
children solace themselves in their separate families, and in the evening 
repair to the public square, where they dance, sing and rejoice during the 
whole night, observing a proper and exemplary decorum. This contin- 
ues three days, and the four following days they receive visits and rejoice 
with their friends from the neighboring towns, who have also purified 
and prepared themselves. 

The Rev. Mr. Brainard, in his journal, says he visited the Indians on 
September 20, 1745, at the Juniata, near the Susquehannah, in Penn- 
sylvania. This is the first month of their civil year, and the usual time of 
the feast of fruits or harvest. It ought to be noted that Mr. Brainard, 
though an excellent man, was at that time wholly unacquainted with the 
Indian language, and, indeed, with their customs and manners. These 
Indians in particular were at a seat of the lowest grade; the most worth- 
less of the nations, wholly ruined by the example and temptations of the 
white people. Mr. Brainard's interpreter was a common Indian, greatly 
attached to the habits of his countrymen, and much in their interest. He 
says he found the Indians almost universally busy in making preparations 
for a great sacrifice and dance. In the evening they met together, to the 
number of about one hundred, and danced around a large fire, having 
prepared ten fat deer for the sacrifice. They burned the fat of the 
inwards in the fire, while they were dancing, and sometimes raised the 
flames to a prodigious height, at the same time yelling and shouting in 
such a manner that they might be heard two miles off. They continued 



AND RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 167 

this sacred dance nearly all night; after which they eat the flesh of the 
sacrifice, and then retired each to his lodging. As Mr. Bartram acknowl- 
edges that lie dared not go among them, he could only give a very imper- 
fect account of their proceedings, as he must have received it from the 
interpreter. 

THE FEAST OF THE DAILY SACRIFICE. 

The next remarkable feasts that they religiously observe, are those of 
the daily sacrifice, and some occasional ones. 

The Hebrews, it is well known, offered daily sacrifices of a lamb every 
morning and evening, and except the skin and entrails, it was burnt 
to ashes. 

The Indians have a very humble imitation of this rite. The women 
always throw a small piece of the fattest into the fire, before they begin 
to eat. At times they view it with pleasing attention, and pretend to 
draw omens from it. This they will do though they are quite alone, and 
not seen by anyone. 

Those who have been adopted by them, and fully considered as belong- 
ing to their nation, say that the Indian men observe the daily sacrifice 
both at home and in the woods, with new killed venison. They also 
draw their new killed venison, before they dress it, seven times' through 
the smoke and flame of fire, both by way of an offering and a sacrifice, 
and to consume the blood, which, with them, as with the Hebrews, would 
be a most horrible abomination to eat. They also sacrifice, while in the 
woods, the melt, or a large fat piece of the first buck they kill. 

They imagine that their temples have such a typical holiness, beyond 
any other place, that if they offered up the annual sacrifice elsewhere it 
would not atone for the people; but rather bring down the anger of Ish- 
to-hoolo Aba, and utterly spoil the power of the holy place and holy 
things, ey who sacrifice in the woods, do it only on particular occa- 
sions, allowed by their law and customs. 

THEIR FEAST OF LOVE, &C. 

Every spring season, one town or more of the Mississippi Floridians^ 
keep a solemn Feast of Love, to renew their old friendships. They call 
this annual feast hottuck ami pa, hccttla ta>iaa,t\y.\t is the people eat, dance 



168 



THEIR PUBLIC WORSHIP, &c. 



and walk as twin brothers. The short name of the feast is hottuk 
impanaa, that is eating by a strong religious and social principle. 
I??ipanaa signifies, as I am informed, several threads or strands twined 
together. They assemble three nights before the feast. On the fourth 
night they eat together. During the intermediate space, the young men 
and women dance in circles, from the evening till the morning. When 
they meet at night it is professed to be to gladden and unite their hearts 
before T. O. He. Wah. They sing T. O. He Wah shoi, T. O. He Wah 
shoo—T. O. He Wah shoo—T. O. He Wah shee—T. O. He Wah skee— 
T. O. He Wah shi — T. O. He Wah shi — with great energy. The first 
word is nearly in the Hebrew characters, the name of Joshua or Savior. 




HE WRITER of these sheets was present himself at a religious 
dance of six or seven nations, accidentally meeting together 
and having been hospitably entertained by the governor and 
inhabitants, thev gave this dance to the governor and such as 
he should invite, by way of showing their gratitude. 

The writer was invited, with a large company of gentle- 
men and ladies. The following is an exact account of what passed; to 
every circumstance of which he was critically attentive. 

After the company had assembled in a very large room, the oldest 
sachem of the Senecas, and a beloved man, entered and took their place 
in the middle of the room, having something- in imitation of a small drum, 
on which the old sachem beats time at the dance. Soon after, between 
twenty and thirty Indians came in wrapped in their blankets. These 
made a very solemn and slow procession round the room, keeping the 
most profound silence, the sachem sounding his drum to direct their 
motion. The second round they began to sing on a bass key _y, y, y, till 
thev completed the circle, dancing the whole time to the sound of the drum, 
in a very solemn and serious manner. The third round, their ardor 






170 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



increases to such a degree, while they danced with a quicker step and 
sang he-he-he, so as to make them very warm, and they began to perspire 
freely, and to loosen their blankets. The fourth round they sang ho, ho, ho, 
with great earnestness, and by dancing with greater violence, their pers- 
piration increased, and they cast off their blankets entirely, which caused 
some confusion. The next and last round put them in a mere frenzy, and 
wreathing like so many snakes, and making as many antic gestures as a 
parcel of monkeys, singing the whole time in the most energetic manner 
wah-wah-wah. They kept time in their dancing as well as any person 
could do, who had been taught by a master. Each round took between 
ten and fifteen minutes. They then withdrew in Indian file, with great 
silence except the. two with the drum. The company had supposed that 
they were invited to a war dance. The writer, desirous of ascertaining 
the nature of the dance, went to the interpreter, and asked him if what 
they had seen was intended as a war-dance. He seemed much dis- 
pleased, and in a pettish manner answered: "A war dance, no! Indians 
never intertain civil people with a war-dance. It was a religious dance." 
In a short time a considerable bustle being heard at the door the com- 
pany came to order, when the Indians re-entered in Indian file, and 
danced one round, then a second, singing in a more lively manner, hal- 
hal-hal till they finished the round. They then gave us a third round 
striking up the worn le-le-le. On the next round, it was the word lu-lu- 
lu, dancing naked, with all their might, having again thrown off their 
blankets. During the fifth round was sung the syllable yah-yah-yah. 
Then all joining as it were, in a general, but very lively and joyous cho- 
rus, they sang hal-le-lu-yah, dwelling on each syllable with a very long 
breath in the most pleasing manner. 

There could be no deception in all this — the writer was near them, paid 
great attention, and everything was obvious to the senses, and discovered 
great fervor and zeal in the performers. Their pronunciation was very 
gutteral and sonorous, but distinct and clear. 

The compiler of these facts rode in the stage to Elizabeth Town, some- 
time about the year 1789, with an Indian sachem of the Creek or Chick- 
esaw nation, and his retinue, who were going, under the care of Col. 
Butler, to NewYork to establish or renew a treaty of peace fvith the United 



MISCE1 LANEOUS FACTS. 171 

States. He was a strong, tall, well proportioned man, of great gravity 
in his appearance and all his behavior. He was was well dressed, and a 
much better demeanor in his whole conduct than any Indian the writer 
had ever seen. Neither he nor one of his attendants could speak Eng- 
lish. From the extraordinary respect paid him by his attendants, he was 
certainly a sachem of high reputation. At dinner though hard pressed 
by some of the gentlemen at table, he could not be persuaded to drink 
more than three glasses of wine, and he would not taste brandy. When 
in Philadelphia, he drank tea in company with a number of ladies, among 

whom was a Miss P , who painted miniature pictures very well. She 

being prepared for it, took his face with a strong likeness, without his 
perceiving it. When it was finished she gave it to the interpreter, who 
put it into the hands of the chief. He appeared in perfect astonishment; 
he looked wildly about him and spoke to the interpreter in Indian, in a 
very emphatic manner, asking him (as he said) where it had come from, 
and what was the meaning of it. The interpreter introduced the young 
lady to him, and told him that she had done it while sitting in the room. 
He expressed himself as very much gratified with it, offered to return it 
to her, but she desired the interpreter to inform him that she wished to 
present it to him. He made great acknowledgements for the favor, 
saying that he was a poor Indian and had nothing to give her in return; 
but that he often spoke to the Great Spirit and that the next time he did, 
he would remember her. 

When the stage drove up to the tavern at Frankfort, the stage-driver 
got out to get a dram, the horses took fright and ran away with the stage 
and overset it, by which the chief received a very large cut on his fore- 
head; and Col. Butler was also wounded, but all the rest got off unhurt. 
The chief jealous that it was done to injure him, seemed terrified and 
alarmed. But when he observed that Col. Butler was also hurt, and that 
it was an accident, he seemed immediately to become calm and easy. A 
surgeon soon came in, and sewed up the wound in a manner that must 
have given the chief great pain, but he would not acknowledge it, 
neither did he discover the least symptom of it. As soon as he was 
dressed he arose up and addressed Col. Butler, which the interpreter 
explained, saying: ''Never mind this, brother, it is the work of the evil 



172 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



spirit; he knows we are going to effect a work of peace; he hates peace 
and loves war; never mind it — let us go on and accomplish our business; 
we will disappoint him." 

The writer of these sheets, was, many years ago, one of the corres- 
ponding members of a society in Scotland, for promoting the gospel 
among the Indians. To further this great work they educated two young 
men of very serious and religious dispositions, and who were desirous of 
undertaking the mission for this special purpose. When they were 
ordained and ready to depart, we wrote a letter in Indian style to the 
Delaware nation, then residing on the northwest of the Ohio, informing 
them that we had by the goodness of the Great Spirit been favored with 
a knowledge of His will, as to the worship He required of His creatures, 
and the means He would ble c s to promote the happiness of man, both in 
this life and that which was to come. That thus enjoying so much hap- 
piness ourselves, we could not but think of our red brethren in the wilder- 
ness, and wished to communicate the glad tidings to them, that they 
might be partakers with us. We had therefore sent them two ministers 
of the gospel, who would teach them these great things, and earnestly 
recommended them to their careful attention. With proper passports 
the missionaries set off and arrived in safety at one of their principal 
towns. 

The chiefs of the nation were called together, who answered them that 
they would take it into consideration, and in the meantime they might 
instruct their women, but they should not speak to the men. They spent 
fourteen days in council, and then dismissed them very courteously, with 
an answer to us. This answer made great acknowledgements for the 
favor we had done them. They rejoiced exceedingly at our happiness in 
thus being favored by *~he Great Spirit, and felt very grateful that we had 
condescended to remember our brethren in the wilderness. But they 
could not help recollecting that we had a people among us, who, 
because they differed from us in color, we had made slaves of, and made 
them suffer great hardships and lead miserable lives. Now they could 
not see any reason, if a people being black, entitled us thus to deal with 
them, why a red color would not equally justify the same treatment. They 
therefore had determined to wait, to see whether all the bkck people 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



l 7:* 



amongst us were made thus happy and joyful, before they could put con- 
fidence in our promises; for they thought a people who had suffered so 
much and so long by our means, should be entitled to our first attention; 
that therefore they had sent hack the two missionaries, with many 
thanks, promising that when they saw the black people amongst us 
restored to freedom and happiness, thev r would gladly receive the mis- 
sionaries. This is what in any other case would be called clo^c reas- 
oning, and it is too mortifying a fact to make further observations 
up on. 

The Indians to the northward are said, by Mr. Golden, a laborous, sen- 
sible writer, in the times of their rejoicings, to repeat yo-ha-han, which 
if true, evinces that their corruption advances as they are distant from 
South America. But Mr. Colden was an utter stranger to their lan- 
guage and manners, and might have mistaken their pronunciation — or if 
he wrote from the information of others, he has not been accurate, etc. 

It was a material, or rather essential mistake to write yo-ha-han, as it is 
confounding their two religious words together. Mr. Adair was assured 
by Sir William Johnson, who had the management of Indian affairs for 
many years under the British government, as well as the Rev. Mr. Ogil- 
vie. a missionary wtth the Mohawks, that the northern Indians always 
pronounced the words of their songs y-ho-he, a or ah, and so Mr. Colden 
altered them in the second edition of his history. He also says, when 
the northern Indians, at a treaty of conference give their assent, they 
answered v. ?io, hah. The speaker called out y-ho-hah, the rest answered 
a sound that could not be expressed in English letters, but seemed to con- 
sist of two words, remarkably distinguished in their candence. The 
sachem of each nation, at the close of their chiefs speech, called out sev- 
ally, y, o, nau. 

Charlevoix in his History of Canada, says that father Griffin told him 
that after having labored some time in the missions in Canada, he 
returned to France and went to China. One day as he was traveling 
through Tartary, he met a Huron woman whom he had formerly known 
in Canada. She said that having been taken in war, she had been con- 
ducted from nation to nation, till she arrived at the place where she then 
was. 



174 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



There was another missionary passing by the way of Nantz, on his 
return from China, who related the like story of a woman he had seen 
from Florida, in America. She informed him that she had been taken by 
certain Indians, and given to those of a distant country, and by these 
again to another nation, till she had successively passed from country to 
country; had traveled regions exceedingly cold, and at last found herself 
in Tartary, and had there married a Tartar, who had passed with the con- 
querors into China, and there settled. 

The Cherokees had an honorable title among them called "the deer- 
killer of the Great Spirit for His pepole." Every town had one solemnly 
appointed, who killed deer for the holy feasts. Thus Nimrod is said to 
have been "a mighty hunter before the Lord." — Gen. X, 9. 

The Indian nations, in the coldest weather, and when the ground is 
covered with snow, practice their religious ablutions. Men and chil- 
dren turn out of their warm houses, singing their usual sacred notes, at 
the dawn of day, T. O. He-wah, and thus they skip along, singing till 
they reach the river, when they instantly plunge into it. 

The Hebrews also had various washings and anointings. They gener- 
ally, after bathing, anointed themselves with oil. Their kings, prophets 
and priests were anointed with oil, and the Savior, himself is described as 
"the Anointed." The Indian priests and prophets, or beloved men, are 
always anointed by unction. The Chickesaws, some time ago, set apart 
some of their old men. They first obliged them to sweat themselves for 
the space of three days and nights in a small hut made for that purpose, 
at a distance from the town, for fear of pollution, and from a strong desire 
they all have of secreting their religious mysteries. They eat nothing 
but green tobacco leaves and drink nothing but button-snake wood tea, to 
cleanse their bodies, and prepare them to serve in the beloved, holy office. 
After which their priestly garments are put on, with the ornaments before 
described, and then bear's oil is poured on their heads. Like the Jews, 
both men and women often anoint themselves with bear's oil. 

It may not be amiss to mention that the Indians never prostrate them- 
selves, nor bow their bodies to each other, by way of salute or homage, 
except when they are making or renewing peace with strangers, who 
come in the name of ivah\ then they bow their bodies in that religious 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



175 



solemnity, Also in their religious dances, for then -thev sing their hymns 
addressed to Y. O. lie- wall. 

The Indians would not eat either the Mexican hog, or the sea-cow, or 
the turtle, as Gumilla and Edwards informs us; but they held them in the 
greatest abhorrence. Neither would they eat the eel; or any animal or 
bird they deemed impure. 

It was foretold by Moses, that the Israelites should "walk in the stub- 
bornness of their own hearts. And add drunkenness to thirst." God, 
by his prophet, threatens them in the severest manner for this abominable 
crime: 

"Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, 
And to the fading flower of their glorious beauty! 

To those that are at the head of the rich valley, that are stupefyed with 
wine! 

Behold the mighty One! the exceedingly strong One! 
Like a storm of hail, like a destructive tempest; 
Like a rapid flood of mighty waters pouring down; 
He shall dash them to the ground with His hand. 
They shall be trodden under foot, 
The proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim. 

In that day shall Jehovah, God of Hosts, become a beauteous 

crown, 

And a glorious diadem to the remnant of his people; 

But even these have erred through wine, and through strong drink 

they have reeled; 
The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; 
They are overwhelmed with wine, they have reeled through strong 

drink; 

They have erred in vision, they have stumbled in judgment, 

For all their tables are full of vomit; 

Of filthiness, so that no place is free." 

—Isaiah XXVII, i— 8— Lowth's Translation. 

This is one of the most terrible predictions denounced against them, 
and has been most wofully verified, should it turn out that the Indians 
are in truth the lost Ten Tribes of Irsael. Among all their vices this 



176 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



see ns the most predominant, and destroys every power of soul and body. 
It is not of this nation or that — of one tribe or another — of one rank 
or the other; but it is universal among men, women and children. 
In short, it is one among a great number, of the unnatural returns made 
them by the Europeans of every nation, for the Indian's kindness at first, 
and their giving up their lands afterwards, the bringing in ardent spirits 
among them for lucre or gain, and by this means have reduced their- 
numbers, and driven them into the wilderness. They have themselves 
long seen their misery in this respect, and have long'been struggling to 
get rid of it; but all in vain till of late years; many men of virtue and of 
real religion have united with them, to aid them, without which it seems 
almost impossible that they can withstand this all-conquering enemy. 

They all make laws against it. They will determine to expell all spirit- 
uous liquors from their towns, and they will, with philosophical firmness, 
destroy large quantities of it, brought in by the traders by stealth. But 
if they once taste it, all the reasoning of the most beloved man will not 
prevent them drinking as long as a drop remains, and generally they 
transform themselves into the likeness of mad foaming bears. 

Mr. Colden says: "There is one vice which the Indians have fallen into 
since their acquaintance with the Christians, and of which they could not 
have been guilty before that time, that is drunkenness. It is strange how 
all the Indian nations, and almost everybody among them, male and 
female, are infatuated with the love of strong drink. They know no 
bounds to their desire while they can swallow it down, and then, indeed, 
the greatest men among them hardly deserve the name of brute." 

They complained heavily to the Rev. Mr. Brainerd, that before the 
coming of the English they knew no such thing as strong drink. That 
the English had, by this means, made them quarrel with, and kill one- 
another, and, in a word, brought them to the practice of all those vices, 
that then prevailed among them. In an address, or rather an answer, 
made by the Delaware Indians in 1768, they say: "Brothers! you have 
spoken to us against getting drunk. What you have said is very agree- 
able to our minds. We see it is a thing that is very bad, and it is a great 
grief to us that rum or any kind of strong liquor should be brought among 
us, as we wish the chain of friendship, which now unites us and our 



I 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 177 

brethren, the English together to remain strong. Brothers! the fault is not 
all in us. It begins with our brothers, the white people. For if t hey 
will bring us rum, some of our people will buy it. It is for that purpose 
it is brought. But if none was brought then we could not buy it. 
Brothers! we beseecli you, be faithful, and desire our brothers, the white 
people to bring no more of it to us. Show this belt to them for this 
purpose. Show it to the great man at the fort (meaning the commander 
at Fort Pitt) and to our brothers on the way as you return, and to the 
great men in Philadelphia, and in other places from which rum may be 
brought, and entreat them not to bring any more." 

There is a very early record in the history of New Jersey, to the credit 
of both Indians and white inhabitants of that day. At a conference held 
with them, when eight kings or sachems were present, the Indian 
speaker said: "Strong liquors were sold to us by the Swedes and by the 
Dutch. These people had no eves. They did not see that it was hurtful 
to us. Nevertheless, if people will sell it, we are so in love with it that 
we cannot forbear. But now there is a people come to live among us 
that have eyes. They see it to be for our hurt. They are willing to deny 
tkemselves the profit for our good. They have eyes. We are glad 
such people have come. We must put it down by mutual consent. We 
give these four belts of wampum to be witnesses of this agreement 
we make with you, and would have you tell it to your children." 

Several nominal prophets have arisen among them, and have become 
very popular, by taking advantage of their superstition, and declaring 
themselves messengers from Heaven. Whatever they may be in reality, 
they have done some good. The Onondagoes, greatly addicted to drunk- 
enness, have, by the influence of the brother of Corn-Planter, a Seneca 
chief, been prevailed on to give up the use of spirituous liquors, and to 
become comparatively moral. Another of these prophets among the 
Shawanese and North-western Indians has been equally successful. 

All the promises of a God of truth, to His faithful servants, Abraham 
Isaac and Jacob, must be strictly fulfilled, as well as the threatenings of 
His abused justice. God did make a solemn and special promise to 
Abraham, which was afterwards repeated to Isaac and Jacob, in very 
strong and expressive terms. 



178 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



And God said: "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because 
thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, 
that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy 
seed as the stars of Heaven, and as the sand upon the sea shore, and thy 
seed shalLpossess the gates of His enemies." — Gen. XXII, 16 — 17. 

Yet this was on condition of their observing the commandments that 
He had given them, for in case of disobedience, the threatening was as 
explicit as the blessing. 

"Jehova has sent a word against Jacob, and it hath lighted up Israel; 
because the people all of them carry themselves haughtily; Ephraim and 
the inhabitants of Samaria, and Jehova, God of Hosts they have not 
sought." Yet His mercy will not finally forsake them. For "It shall 
come to pass, in that day that no more shall the remnant of Israel, md the 
escaped of the house of Jacob, lean upon Him who smote them, but shall 
lean upon Jehova, the Holy One of Israel in truth. A remnant shall 
return, even a remnant of Jacob unto the mighty God, for though thy 
people Israel be as the sands of the sea, yet a remnant of them only shall 
return: the consumation decided shall overflow the strict justice." — 
Lowth's Isaiah X, 23. The learned Dr. B#got, Dean of Christ's Church , 
Oxford, translates the last clause of the verse thus: "The accomplish- 
ment determined, overflows with justice; for it is accomplished, and that 
which is determined, the Lord of Hosts doth in the midst of the land." — 
Vid. Lowth's notes on Isaiah, page 81. 

Hosea also repeats the affecting fate of Israel. "And the Lord said 
unto him, I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel, for I 
will no more have mercy on the house of Israel; but I will utterly take 
them away. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the 
sands of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered; and it shall 
come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, ye are not 
my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living 
God. Then shall the children of Judah, and the children of Israel be 
gathered, and shall appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up 
out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel." 

And St. John says: "And the sixth angel poured out his vial on the 
great river Euphrates, and the waters thereof were dried np, that the 



miscellaneous facts. 



1 71) 



vva\ of the king of the Last might be prepared." The Indian nations 
w ill answer, in a great measure, the description here given. That they 
have long been confined to wander in the wilderness of America, and 
that the consumption decreed has been awfully executed on them, cannot 
be denied. That they have been despised and treated as barbarians, and 
children of the devil, is too true. 

We have already mentioned one hundred and ninety nations within 
our scanty means of knowledge, and though many of them are destroyed 
and done away, for the consumption was decreed, yet if ,we look at the 
maps of travellers, and attend to the account given of the nations from 
Greenland to Mexico, and from thence to the nation of the Dogribbed 
Indians, thence to the Southern ocean, and along its coast northward to 
the Lake of the Woods, and thence to Hudson's Bay and Greenland, and 
estimate in addition, the nations of the interior, what nation of people in 
the world can so literally answer the strong figures, of the stars of 
heaven and the sands of the sea. 

Again, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, attended by a few of the 
Israelites among them, scattered through Asia, Africa and Europe, have 
no pretension of any king among them. But the Indians have a king to 
every tribe, and as we have seen,- the Natchez had once five hundred 
kings in that one nation. Now if part of the nations to the North-west, 
should again return over the straits of Kamschatka, and pass on from the 
north-eastern extremity of Asia, by the way between the Euxine and 
the Caspian seas, through ancient Media, which formerly extended west- 
ward to the river Halys, on the Black or Euxine sea* and Asia Minor 
into Palestine, then they must pass through the turritory of the Grand 
Porte. Therefore that government must necessarily be destroyed, to 
mak way for these kings from the east, as it is not likely that despotic 
power would consent to their passing through in peace, to deprive her of 
Palestine. Another remarkable circumstance attending the 
forgoing account is, that before the Babylonish captivity, the Jews 

* The different empires of the Lydians unci the Medce, were divided by the river Malys, which lias two 
branches, which rising in a mountain of Armenia, passing through Celicia, leaviug in its progress the 
Matenians on the right, and Phrygia on the left; then stretching towards the north, it separates the Cap- 
yadocian Syrians from Paphlagonia, which is on the left side of the stream. Thus the river ilaylis sepa- 
rates all the lower parts of Asia from the sea, which flows oppositejo Cyprus, as far as the Euxine, a space 
over which the active men could not travel in less than five days.— 1. Heredotus 112—113. 



180 



MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 



had but one temple for public worship, whither the males assembled 
three times in the year. The Samaritans, after the captivity, observed 
the same at Samaria, the capitol of their kingdom. The Ten Tribes were 
carried captives to the north-western parts of Assyria, before the 
Babylonish captivity, and therefore had no idea of but one place of 
worship for a nation. 

The Indians have also but one temple, or beloved square, for a nation, 
whither their males also assemble three times in a year, to wit: At the 
Feast of First Fruits, generally the latter end of March and April, it 
being the beginning of their ecclesiastical year, at the end of which they 
have another in imitation of the Passover. The feast for success in hunt- 
ing, about the time of Penticost, called the Hunter's Feast; and their 
great feast for Expiation ot Sin, which is about the time of the ripening 
of their indian corn and other fall fruit. 

These form a coincidence of circumstances in important and peculiar 
establishments, that could not, without a miracle, be occasioned by chance 
or accident. And though, individually, or each by itself, might be said 
not to be conclusive evidence, yet taken all together and compared with 
many other peculiarities of the Jewish people, they carry strong con- 
viction to the understanding, that these wandering nations have, some: 
how or other, had intimate connection with those once people of God. 






Of those who had an opportunity of judging, from the aj 
pearance and conduct of the Indians at the first 
discovery of America, as well as of some 
Y/ho have seen them since, in 
a state of nature. 



..',XD first that of Spanish authors. And here proper allow- 
ance must be made for the prevailing intentions of the first 
Spanish visitors, in their coming to America, which (with 
^^^^^^^ some few exceptions) were principally from the most cov- 
^/^s^ etous desires of amassing wealth, and obtaining immense 
riches at all risks, and by every means. Also it must be 
remembered how few concerned themselves about the religious state of 
the natives, if they could but get their property, neither did they give 
themselves any trouble to know their history, their origin, customs or 
future expectations; but their gold, their silver, their lands and their furs, 
were the whole object of their attention. 

We thank God that there were some favorable exceptions. The 
learned world is, by this time pretty well acquainted with the degree of 
confidence that ought to be paid to the Spanish historians in general, 
further than their accounts are confirmed and supported by other his- 
torians of character. 



L 



182 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. 



Few of them conversed with the natives, in such a manner as to gain 
their confidence, or obtain any intimate knowledge of their manners and 
customs, with any tolerable degree of certainty. They did not treat them 
as friends, but as the most inveterate enemies, and despised, hated and 
murdered them, without remorse or compunction, in return for their 
kindness and respect. And to excuse their own ignorance, and to cast 
a mantle over their most shocking, barbarous, cool and predominate mur- 
ders, they artfully described them as an abominable swarm of idolatrous 
cannibals, offering human sacrifices to their false deities, and eating their 
unfortunate victims. Notwithstanding, from even many of those partial 
accounts, we can trace a near agreement between the civil and martial 
customs, the religious worship, traditions, dress, ornaments, and other 
particulars of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, and those of the 
Indians of North America. 

Acosta tells us that the Mexicans had no proper name for God, yet that 
they allowed a Supreme omnipotence and providence. His capacity was 
not sufficient to discover the former, however, the latter means that very 
Being, and agrees with the religious opinion of their North American 
brethren. 

Lopez de Gamara tells us that the Americans were so devout as to offer 
to the sun and earth a small quantity of every kind of meat and drink, 
before any of themselves tasted it, and that they sacrificed a part of their 
corn, fruits, &c. in like manner. 

Is not this a confused Spanish account of the imitation of the Jewish 
daily sacrifice, which we have before seen our more Northern Indians 
in the constant habit of offering to the Supreme Holy Spirit of Fire 
whom they invoke in their sacred song of T. Ho. He- Wah, and loudly 
ascribe to Him hal-le-lu-wah, for His continued goodness to them? 

The Spanish writers say that when Cortez approached Mexico, Mon- 

i 

tezuma shut himself up, and continued for the space of eight days in 
prayer and fasting; but to blacken him and excuse their own diabolical 
conduct they assert that he offered human sacrifices at the same time, to 
abominable and frightful idols. These prayers and fastings were doubt- 
less the same as the Northern Indians, who, on particular occasions, seek 
to sanctify themselves and regain the favor of the Deity. 



ADDITIONAL TKSTIMOM Y 



is:; 



Yet these same authors tell us that they found there a temple, called 

teucalli^ or the house of the Cire.it Spirit, and a person belonging to it, 
called chac&ltnua, that is, a minister of holy things. They likewise speak 
of the hearth of the Great Spirit; the continual fire of the Great Spirit; 
the holy ark, &c. 

Acosta says the Peruvians held a very extraordinary feast, called Vtn, 
which they prepared themselves for by feasting two days, not accom- 
panied by their wives, or eating salt meat or garlic, or drinking chicca 
during that period. That they assembled altpgether in one place, and do 
not allow any stranger or beast to approach them. That they had clothes 
and ornaments which they wore only at great festivals. That they went 
silently and sedately in processions, with their heads veiled and drums 
beating; and that this continued one day and night. But the next day 
they danced and feasted, and for two days successively, their prayers and 
praises were heard. 

This appears no other than our Northern Indians' great festival to 
atone for sin. according to the Mosaic system. 

Lericus tells us he was present at the triennial feast of the Charibbeans 
where a multitude of men, women and children were assembled. That 
they soon divided themselves into three orders, apart from each other, the 
women and children being strictly commanded to stay within and attend 
diligently to the singing. The men sang in one house, he-he-he, while 
the others, in their separate houses, answered by a repetition of the like 
notes. Thus they continued a quarter of an hour, dancing in three rings 
with ratiles. They also tell us that the high priest or beloved man was 
anointed with holy oil, 'and dressed with pontifical ornaments peculiar to 
himself, when he officiated in his sacred function. 

Ribault Landon, in describing the annual feast of the Floridians, says 
that the day before it began, the women swept out a great circuit of 
ground, where it was observed with solemnity. That when the main 
body of the people entered the holy ground, they all placed themselves in 
good order, decked in their best apparel, three beloved men or priests, with 
different painting and gestures, followed them, playing on musical instru- 
ments and singing with solemn voices; the others answering them. And 
when they made three circles, the men ran off to the woods, and the women 



-184 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. 



staid weeping behind, cutting their arms with muscle shells, and throwing^ 
the blood towards the sun. And when the men returned, the three days 
were finished. 

This is no other than the Northern Indians' Passover, or the Feast of 
Love, badly told, attended with their universal custom of bleeding them- 
selves after great exercises, which the Spaniards foolishly supposed they 
offered up to the sun. 

These Spanish writers also assure us that the Mexicans had a feast and 
month, which they called , Yueitozolti, when the Indian corn was ripe. 
Every man at this time bringing a handful to be offered at the temple, 
with a kind of drink made out of some grains. This is no other than the. 
first fruit offering of the Northern Indians. 

Don Antonio de Ulioa informs us that some of the South American 
natives cut the lobes of their ears and fastened small weights in them, in 
which they hang small shells, rings, &c* This also agrees with the 
practice of every nation of the Northern Indians. 

Mr. Bartram says: "Their ears are lacerated, separating the border or 
cartilagenous limb, which is first bound round, very close and tight, with 
leather strings or thongs, and anointed with fresh bear's oil until healed. 
The weight of the lead, which they hang to it, extends the cartilage 
which, after being craped or bound round with brass or silver wire, 
extends it semi-circularly, like a bow or crescent, and it is then very elas- 
tic. It is then decorated with a plume of white herring feathers. 

Acosta says the clothes of the South Americans are shaped like those 
of the ancient Jews, being a square little cloak, over a little coat. 

Lact, in his description of South America, as well as Escarbotus,. 
assures us that he often heard the South Americans repeat the word 
hallelujah. And Malvenda says that the natives of St. Michael had 
tomb-stones with several ancient Hebrew characters upon them, as 
"Why is God gone away?" and "He is dead, God knows." 

The Michuans, one of the original nations of Mexico, lield, according 
to the Abbe Clavigero's, declaration, this tradition: "There was once 



* Mr. Bruce, in his travels, speaking of a sect of Christians called Kemmout says: "Their women pierce 
their eai s and apply weights to make them hang down and enlarge the holes, into which they put ear-rings- 
almost as big as shackles, in the same manner as do the Bedowise, in Syria and Palestine." — 4 vol., p. 275. 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY 



L85 



;i great delude, and Tepzi % (as they call Noah) in order to save himself 
from being" drowned, embarked in a ship, formed like an Ark, with his 
wife, children and many different animals, and several seeds and fruits. 
As the water abated he sent out the bird, which bears the name of oura, 
which remained eating dead bodies. He then sent out other biids, which 
did not return, except the little bird, called the flower sucker, which 
brought a small branch." — Panoplist for June. 1813, page 9. From this 
family of 7<yV:7. the Michuccans all believe the}' derived their origin. 

Both Malvend and Acosta affirm that the natives observe a year of 
jubilee, according to the usage of the Israelites. 

Emanuel de Moraez, a Portugese historian, in his History of Brazil, 
says: "America has been wholly peopled by the Carthagenians and 
Israelites. As to the last, he says nothing but circumcision is wanting to 
constitute a perfect resemblance between them and the Brazilians." 
We have seen that some of the nations practice it to this day. 

Monsieur Poutincourt says, at an early day, when the Canadian Indi- 
ans saluted him they said ka-ho-ho. 

Mr. Edwards, in his History of the West Indies says: "The striking 
conformity of the prejudices and customs of the Charibbee Indians, to 
the practices of the Jews, has not escaped the notice of historians, as 
Gumella, Du Tertre and others." 

Adair, who was the most careful observer of the Indians' whole econ- 
omy, both public and private, and had the best opportunity of knowing 
it. without much danger of deception, beyond any other writer, gives his 
opinion in the following words: "It is a very difficult thing to divest our- 
selves of prejudices and favorite opinions, and I expect to be censured for 
opposing commonly received sentiments. But truth is my object, and 
from the most exact observations I could make in the long time I traded 
among the Indian Americans, I was forced to believe them to be lineally 
descended from the Israelites." 

The Rev. Mr. Beatty says: "I have before hinted that I have taken 
pains to search into the usages and customs of the Indians, in order to 
see what ground there w r as for supposing them to be part of the Ten 
Tribes of the Jews, and I must own to my own surprise, that a number 
of their customs appear so much to resemble those of the Jews, that it is 



186 ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. 

a great question with me, whether we can expect to find among the Ten 
Tribes (wherever they may be) at this day, all things considered, more 
of the footsteps of their ancestors than among the different Indian tribes. 
It is not forgotten that the Indians are charged as a barbarous, revengeful* 
cruel and bloodthirsty race — deceitful, ungrateful and ever ready for 
murder and rapine. 

Most of this will not be disputed. They are educated from their 
infancy to make war in this cruel manner. They scalp their fallen 
enemy, and most cruelly torment and burn some of those they 
take prisoners. This they think lawful, and often plead the will of 
the Great Spirit for it. It is their habitual custom, and they make war 
on these principles. But they have their virtues too. They pay the 
greatest respect to female prisoners, and are never known to offer them 
the least indecency. Whenever they determine to spare their enemies, 
which is often done, they not only make them free, but they adopt them 
into their families, and make them a part of their nation, with all the 
privileges of a native Indian. This is an instance of mildness and gener- 
osity known to but few savages in the world, but rather resembles the 
Romans. 

They are generous, hospitable, kind and faithful to their friends or 
strangers, in as great a degree as they are vindictive and barbarous to 
their enemies in war. 

Col. Smith, in his journal, mentions that he "Went a great distance 
hunting with his patron Tontileaugo, along the shores of lake Erie, 
where we staid several days on account of the high winds, which raised 
the lake in great billows. Tontileaugo went out to hunt. When he was 
gone, a Wiandot came to the camp — I gave him a shoulder of venison 
well roasted. He received it gladly — told me he was hungry, and 
thanked me for my kindness. When my patron came home, I told him 
what I had done — he answered it was very well, and supposed I had 
given him sugar and bear's oil to eat with his venison — I told him I did 
not, as both were down in the canoe, and I did not go for them. He 
replied, you have behaved just like a Dutchman. Do you not know that 
when strangers come to our camp, we ought always give to them the 
/ best we have. I acknowledged my fault. He said he would excuse me 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY 



1S7 



for this ;is I was but young; but I must learn to behave like a warrior, and 
do great things, and never be found in such little actions." — Page 25, 

and 29. 

Smith, in his History of New Jersey, informs us: "That the Indians 
Long remember kindnesses families or individuals had shown them. This 
also must be allowed, that the original and more incorrupt among 
them, very seldom forget to be grateful, where real benefits have 
been received. And notwithstanding the stains of perfidy and cruelty 
which latterly in 1754, and since, have disgraced the Indians of the 
frontier provinces, (but which the writer well knows were produced by 
the w icked and unjust oppression of these sons of nature by the white 
people) even these, by the uninterrupted intercourse of seventy years, 
had. on many occasions, given irrefragable proofs of liberality of senti- 
ment, hospitality of action and impressions, that seemed to promise a con- 
tinuation of better things. Witness their first reception of the English — 
their selling their lands to them afterwards — their former undeviating 
candor at treaties in Pennsylvania, and many other incidents too numer- 
ous to mention." — Page 144. 

But however guilty these unhappy wandering nations have been, 
neither Europeans or Americans ought to complain so heavily of Indian 
cruelties, particularly in scalping their enemies, which is one of their 
most habitual cruelties, and in which they glory. They are too fully jus- 
tified in this horrible practice, by the encouragement and example of those 
who call themselves civilized and even Christians. 

Herodotus informs us that the Scythians scalped their enemies, 
and used them as trophies ofvictory. Polybius says, in the war 
with the Mercenaries, Gisco, the Carthigenian, and seven hundred 
prisoners were scalped alive. Varrus, the Roman general, 
caused two thousand Jews, whom he had taken prisoners, 
to be crucified at one time. — Josephus, 4 vol., Ill chapter and 12 
page. 

L'nder the mild government of Great Britain, and that of France, 
premiums have been promised and given to the Indians, by their govern- 
ors and generals, for the scalps of their enemies. Nay, even in America, 
acts of assembly have been passed, giving rewards to the civilized inhab- 



188 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. 



itants, for scalps and prisoners, even so high as one hundred pounds for 
an Indian scalp. — 2 Colden, 120. 

If it should be said the government of Great Britain ought not to be 
charged with this, it is answered that the government not only knew of 
all this; but during our Revolutionary War, the British secretary of state, 
in the House of Lords, supported its policy and necessity, as they ought 
to use every means that God and nature had put into their hands. — 
Belshman. They had in their service at that time about fifteen hundred 
Indian warriors. 

Mr. Belshman says that in the Revolutionary War with America, the 
son ^of Sir William Jones "Held a great war feast with the Indians, 
chiefly Iroquois, when he invited them to banquet upon a Bostonian and 
rink his blood." And though I doubt not but this was mere hyperbol- 
ical language, yet did it not countenance and encourage the Indians in 
their customary cruelty and vindictive rage?* 

* But are the United States, with all their boasted freedom and philanthropy, free from blame on this 
subject? The following is an extract from a report from Brigadier General Clayborne, to the Secretary of 
War: "Sir, on the 13th ultimo I marched* a detachment from this post with a view of destroying the towns 
of the inimical Creek Indians, on the Alabama, above the mouth of the Cahaba. After having marched 
about eighty miles, I was within thirty miles of a town newly erected on ground called holy, occupied by a 
large body of the enemy. About noon on the 23d, the right column, commanded by Col. Joseph Carson, 
came in view of the town called Eckanachaen, (or holy ground) and was vigorously attacked.— Thirty of the 
enemy were killed, and judging from appearances, many were wounded. In the town we found large quan- 
tities of provisions, and immense property of various kinds, which the enemy, flying precipitately, were 
obliged to leave behind, and which, together with two hundred houses, were destroyed. They had barely 
time to remove their women and children across the Alabama, which runs near where the town stood. The 
next day was spent in destroying a town consisting of sixty houses, eight miles farther up the river. The 
town first destroyed was built since the commencement of hostilities, and was established as a place of 
security for the inhabitants of several villages. Three principal prophets resided there."— United States 
Gazette, February 15th, 1814. 

In Nile's register, of September 26th, 1812, we find this pleasing flight of the imagination of a friend of the 
war: "Imagination looks forward to the moment when all the Southern Indians (meaning as well in Flor- 
ida as in Georgia) shall be pushed across the Mississippi." Again the same paper says: "Fortunately this 
nation (meaning the Creeks in Georgia) have supplied us with a pretext for dismembering their country." 
The Southern Indians had not, at that time, taken up the hatchet against the United States. In proof of 
this we have the assertion of Governor Mitchel, who in his speech to the legislature of Georgia, October, 1812» 
eaid: "As yet those (Indians) within the United States lines, profess peace and friendship." Shortly after 
this speech the war with the Southern Indians was commenced. The radical cause of it is more than 
broadly hinted at in the letter of the Governor of St. Augustine, to Governor Mitchel, dated December 12, 
1812. He, along with other warm expostulations regarding the conspiracy of the people of Georgia, to expel 
or destroy the Indians, has the following: "The Indians are to be insulted, threatened and driven from 
their lands; if they resist, nothing less than total extermination is to be their fate; but you deceive yourself 
sir, if you think the world is blind to your motives; it is not long since the state of Georgia had a slice of 
Indian lands, and the fever is again at its height." Accordingly, in 1813, Nile's Register sounded the tocsin 
for their extermination: "All these pleasing prospects are clouded by blood, and forever blasted by that 
treacherous people (the Creeks) for whom we have done so much, so that mercy itself seems to demand 
their extermination " And afterwards "The fighting continued with some severity for about five hours, 
but we continued to kill many of them, that is after the battle was over, who had concealed themselves 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY 



L89 



In 1794, the six nations, including a late addition of Grand River, in 
Canada, the Stockbridge and Crotherton Indians, consisting of about 
>i\ thousand souls. They now do not exceed half that number. They 
have not reserved to them now above two thousand acres ot land out of 
their immense territory, at least one thousand miles in length, and five 
hundred miles broad. — Clinton 4S — 53. 

The famous Capt. Cook, in his visit to the coast of America, in the 
South seas, without any reference to this great question, barely gives you 
the facts that appeared to him during the very short intercourse he had 
with them. — 2 vol., 266 — 283. 

He says: ' ; The inhabitants met them, singing in slow and then quick 
time, accompanying their notes with beating time in concert with their 
paddles, and regular motion of their hands, and other expressive gestures. 
At the end of each song they remained silent, and then began again, pro" 
nouncing ho-ho-ah, forcibly as a chorus. The ship's crew listened with 
great admiration. The natives behaved well. 

••The people of Nootka Sound, keep the nicest concert in their songs, 
by great numbers together — they are slow and solemn — their variations 
are numerous and expressive, and the cadence or melody powerfully 
soothing — their music was sometimes varied from its predominant solem- 
nity of air, and sung in a more gay and lively strain. They have a 
weapon made of stone; not unlike the American tomahawk, they call it 
Tdaiveeh and TsuskuahP — Page 310. 

Their manufacturies and mechanic arts are far more extensive and 
ingenious than the savages of the South Sea Islands, whether we regard 
the design or the execution. Their flannel and woolen garments, 
made of the bark of a pine tree, beaten into a hempen state, with vari- 
ous figures artificially inserted into them, with great taste and of different 
colors of exquisite brightness. They are also famous for painting and 
carving. — Ibid 304. 

ander the bank of the river, until we were prevented by night. This morning we killed sixteen who had 
been concealed."— Poulson's Daily Advertiser, 24, 1814. 

Yet we are the people who remonstrate with zealous warmth and loud recrimination against the barbar- 
ism of the British army, in wantonly burning our towns and injuring the defenseless inhabitants, contrary 
to tin' rules of civilized warfare— a strange warfare it must be— Civilized warfare, what a contradiction in 
express terms. Alas! what has not our nation to answer for at the bar of retributive justice? Tie' Capitol 
)t W ushington, in flames, instructs on this occasion. 



190 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. 



Their common dress is a flannel garment or mantle, ornamented on the 
upper edge by a narrow strip of fur, and at the latter end by fringes or 
tassels. Over this, which reaches to the knees, is worn a small cloak of 
the same substance, likewise fringed at the lower edge. Every reader 
must be reminded by this of the fringes and tassels of the Jews on their 
garments. 

In Prince William's Sound the common dress is a kind of frock or 
robe, reaching to the knees and sometimes to the ankles, made of the 
skins of animals; and in one or two instances they had woolen garments. 
All are ornamented with tassels or fringe. A few had a cape or collar, 
and some a hood. This bears a great resemblance to the dress of the 
Greenlanders, as described by Crantz — Ibid 397 — 298 The reader will 
find in Crantz, many striking instances in which the Greenlanders and 
Americans of this part of America resemble eachother, besides those 
mentioned by Capt. Cook. 

Father Joseph Gumella, in his account of the nations bordering on the 
Oronoko, relates that the Charibbee Indians of the continent punished 
their women caught in adultery, like the ancient Jews, by stoning them 
to death before the assembly of the people. — Edward's West-Indies, 1 vol. 
39, in a note. 



IMItllllllllllMIIIIIIIIIIIINIIIIMIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli 





llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllimilllllllllllllllllll 1, 1 1, null 

THE IHDIAHS HAYE A SYSTEM OF 



4 




r 



AMONG THEM, THAT IS VERY STRIKING. 




They have Teachers to Instruct them in it- of which 
they have Thought very highly, till of late years, 
they hegin to Doubt its Efficacy. 



E ARE indebted to Dobson's Encyclopedia for the fol- 
lowing testimony of Indian morality. — Vol. i, page 557. 
It is the advice given from a father to a son, it is believed 
taken from a Spanish author: "My son, who art come 
into light from the womb, we know not how long heaven 
will grant to us the enjoyment of that precious gem, 
which we possess in thee. But however short the period endeavor to 
live exactly — praying to the Great Spirit continually to assist thee. He 
created thee — thou art His property. He is thy father and loves thee 
still more than I do. Repose in Him thy thoughts and day and night 
direct thy sighs to Him. Reverence and salute thy elders, and hold no 
one in contempt. To the poor and distressed be not dumb, but rather 
use words of comfort. Mock not, my son, the aged nor the imperfect. 
Scorn not him who you see fall into some folly or transgression, nor make 
him reproaches; and beware lest thou fall into the same error, which 
offends thee in another. Go not where thou art not called, nor interfere 
in that which does not concern thee. No more, my son. Enough has 
been said to discharge the duties of a father. With these counsels I wish 
to fortify thy mind. Refuse them not, nor act in contradiction to them; 
for on them thy life and all thy happiness depend.'' 



192 



OF THEIR MORALITY. 



Mr. Beatty, when among the Indians in Ohio, addressed them. In 
•answer, the speaker said: "They believed that there was a Great Spirit 
above, and desired to serve Hirn in the best manner they could. That 
they thought of Him at their rising up and lying down, and hoped He 
would look upon them, and be kind to them, and do them good." In the 
evening several came to the their lodging. Among these one was called 
Neolin, a young man who used for some time past to speak to his breth- 
ren, the Indians, about their wicked ways. He had taken great pains 
with them, and so far as Mr. Beatty could learn, he had been the means 
•of reforming a number of them. He was informed by a captive who had 
been adopted into Neolin's family, that he frequently used to boil a quan- 
tity of bitter roots, till the water became very strong; that he drank plen- 
tifully of this liquor, and made his family and relatives drink of it. That 
it proved a severe emetic. The end of which, as Neolin said, was to 
cleanse them from their inward sins. 

The following is an account of their evening entertainment at Altasse, 
one of the Creek towns, in the year 1778. The writer after describing 
the council house where the Indians met, says: "The assembly being 
now seated in order, and the house illuminated by their mystical cane fire 
in the middle, two middle aged men came together, each having a very 
large conck shell full of black drink, advancing with slow, uniform and 
steady steps, their eyes and countenances lifted up, and singing very low, 
but sweetly, till they came within six or eight steps of the king's and 
white people's seats; when they stopped and each rested his shell on a 
little table; but soon taking it up again, advanced, and each presented his 
shell, one to the king and the other to the chief of the white people; and 
as soon as he raised it to his mouth, they uttered or sang two notes, each of 
whom continued as long as he had breath, and as long as these notes con- 
tinued, so long must the person drink, or at least keep the shell to his 
mouth. These long notes are very seldom, and at once strike the imag- 
ination with a religious awe and homage to the Supreme Being, sound- 
ing somewhat like a-hoo-o-jah, and a-lu-yah. After this manner the 
whole assembly were treated, as long as the drink continued to hold out. 
As soon as the drink began, tobacco and pipes were brought in. The 
king or chief smoked, first in the great pipe, a few whiffs, blowing if off 



OF THEIR MORAL] : I 



ceremoniously, first towards the sun, or as was generally supposed, to the 

Great Spirit, for it is puffed upward; next toward the tour cardinal 

points, then toward the white people in the house. Then the great 

pipe is taken from the hand of the king and presented to the chief white 
man, and then to the great war chief, from whence it is circulated through 
the ranks of head men and warrior.-, and then returned to the chief. 
After this, each one tilled his pipe from his own or his neighbor's pouch. 
Here all classes of citizens resort every night in the summer or moderate 
season. The women and children are not allowed, or very seldom, to 
enter the public square." 

In the same year, the son of the Spanish governor of St. Angustine. in 
East Florida, with two of his companions were brought in prisoners, 
they then being at war with that province. They were all condemned to 
be burned. The English traders in the town petitioned- the Indians in 
their behalf, expressing their wishes to obtain their pardon, offering a 
great ransom, acquainting them at the same time with their rank. 
Upon this the head men or chiefs, of the whole nation, were convem-d; 
and after solemn and mature deliberation, returned the trader their final 
answer, in the following address: 

"Brethren and friends-. — We have been considering upon this business 
concerning the captives, and that under the eye and fear of the Great 
Spirit. You know that these people are our cruel enemies — they save 
no lives of us red men who fall into their power. You say that the youth 
is the son of the Spanish governor — we believe it. We are sorry that he 
has fallen into our hands, but he is our enemy. The two young men, 
his friends, are equally our enemies. We are sorry to see them here. 
But we know no difference in their flesh and blood. They are equally 
our enemies. If we save one, we must save all three. But we cannot 
do this. The red men require their blood to appease the spirits of their 
slain relatives. They have entrusted us with the guardianship of 
their laws and rights — we cannot betray them. However, we have a 
sacred prescription relative to this affair, which allows us to extend 
mercy to a certain degree. A third is to be saved by lot. The Great 
Spirit allows us to put it to that decision. He is no respecter of persons. " 
The lots were cast. The governor's son and one of his friends were 



194 OF THEIR MORALITY. 

taken and burnt. This must certainly appear to some as the act of bar- 
barians, but how far is it removed from the practice of the Jews, when 
they so vociferously called out: "Crucify Him, crucify Him? And Pilate 
said, Ye have a custom that I should release a prisoner to you at the feast; 
but they they cried more bitterly, Not this man, but Barabbas." 

A minister preaching to a congregatoin of Christian Indians west ot 
the Delaware, observed a stranger Indian, listening with great attention. 
After the service the minister inquired who he was. It appeared on 
inquiry that he lived three hundred miles to the westward — that he had 
just arrived and gave this account of himself: "His elder brother living in 
his house, had been many days and nights in perplexity, wishing to learn 
to know the Great Spirit, till at length he resolved to retire into the 
woods, supposing that he should succeed better in a state of separation 
from all mankind. Having spent many weeks alone in great affliction, 
he thought he saw a man of majestic appearance, who informed him 
that there were Indians living to the south-east, who were acquainted 
with the Great Spirit and the way to everlasting life; adding that he 
should go home and tell his people what he had seen and heard. For 
this reason, as soon as he heard his brother speak, he determined to travel 
in search of the people he had described, till he found them; and since he 
had heard what had been said that day, the words had been welcome to 
his heart." 

A missionary made a journey to the Shawanese country, the most sav 
age of the Indian nations. He stopped at the first village he came to and 
lodged with one of the chief men. He informed the chief of his business* 
and opened some truths of the gospel to him by means of an interpreter 
who accompanied him. The chief paid great attention, and after some 
time told him that he was convinced that the missionary's doctrines were 
true, pointing out the right road. That the Shawanese had long been 
striving to find out the way of life; but that he must own, with regret, 
that all their labor and researches had been in vain. That they, therefore, 
had lost all courage, not knowing what they should do further to obtain 
happiness. The chief accompanied the missionary to the next village 
and persuaded him to lodge with a heathen teacher. The missionary 
then preached to him, and told him that he had brought him the words of 



OF THEIR MORALITY 



1 95 



eternal life. After some days the heathen teacher said: ••! have not been 

able to sleep all night, tor I am continually meditating upon your words 
and w ill now open to yon my whole heart. I believe yon Speak the 
truth. A year ago I became convinced that we are altogether sinful crea- 
tures, and that none of our good works can save us; but I did not know 
.what to do to get relief. 1 have therefore comforted my people that 
somebody would come and show us the true way to happiness, for we 
are not in the right way. And even but the day before you came, I 
desired my people to have a little patience, and that some teacher would 
come. Now you have come, and I verily believe that the Great Spirit 
has sent you to make known His word to us. 

Monsieur De Lapotrie. a French author, speaking of the Cherokeesand 
other Southern Indians, gives this account of them: "These Indians look 
upon the end of life, to be living happily; and for this purpose their whole 
customs are calculated to prevent avarice, which they think embitters 
life. 

"Nothing is a more severe reflection among them than to say, that a 
man loves his own. To prevent the use and propagation of such a vice, 
upon the death of an Indian, they burn all that belongs to the deceased, 
that there may be no temptation for the parent to hoard up a superfluity 
of arms or domestic conveniences for his children. They cultivate no 
more land than is necessary for their plentiful subsistance and hospitality 
to strangers. At the feast of expiation, they also burn all the fruits of 
the earth and grain left of the past year's crops." 

* Mr. Brainerd informs us that about one hundred and thirty miles from 
our settlements, he met with an Indian who was said to be a devoted and 
zealous reformer. He was dressed in a hideous and terrific manner. He 
had a house consecrated to religious worship. Mr. Brainerd discoursed 
with him about Christianity, and some of the discourse he seemed to like 
and some of it was wholly rejected. He said that God had taught him 
His religion, and that he would never turn from it; but wanted to find 
some one who would heartily join him in it, for the Indians had grown 
very degenerate and corrupt. He said he had thought of leaving all his 
friends and travelling abroad in order to rind some one who would join 
with him, for he believed that the Great Spirit had other people some- 



106 



OF THEIR MORALITY. 



where who felt as he did. He said that he had not always felt as he now 
did, but had formerly been like the rest of the Indians, until about four 
or five years before that time. Then he said that his heart was very 
much distressed, so that he could not live among the Indians, but got 
away into the woods and lived for some months. At length he said the 
Great Spirit had comforted his heart and showed him what he should do,, 
and since that time he had known the Great Spirit and tried to serve 
Him,, and love all men, be they who they may, as he never did before. 
He treated Mr. Brainerd with uncommon courtesy, and seemed to be 
hearty in it. 

The other Indians said that he had opposed their drinking strong 
liquors with all his power; and that it at any time he could not dissuade 
them from it, he would leave them and go crying into the woods. It 
was manifest that he had a set of religious notions of his own, that he 
had looked into for himself, and had not taken for granted upon bare 
tradition; and he relished or disrelished whatever was spoken of a reli- 
gious nature, according as it agreed or disagreed with his standard. He 
would sometimes say, now, that I like, so the Great Spirit has taught me, 
&c. Some of his sentiments seemed very just; yet he utterly denied the 
existence of an evil spirit, and declared there was no such being known 
among the Indians of old times, whose religion he supposed he was 
trying to revive. He also said that departed souls went Southward, and 
the difference between the good and the bad was that the former were 
admitted into a beautiful town with spiritual walls, or walls agreeable to 
the nature of souls. The latter would forever hover around those walls 
and attempt to get in. He seemed to be sincere, honest and consci- 
entious in his own way, and according to his own religious notions, which 
was more than could be said of most other pagans Mr. Brainerd had seen. 
He was considered and derided by the other Indians as a precise zealot 
who made an unnecessary noise about religious matters; but in Mr. 
Brainerd's opinion there was something in his temper and disposition 
that looked more like true religion than anything he had observed among 
other heathen Indians. 

Smith, in his History of New Jersey, gives the following extract from a 
letter on this subject, from an Indian interpreter, the well-known Conrad 



OF THEIR MORALITY 



1<)7 



Wiser. — 145. "1 write this to give an account of what I have observed 
among the Indians, in relation to their belief and confidence in a Divine 
Being, according to the observations I have made from the year 17 14, in 
the days of my youth, up to this day. If by the word religion is meant 
an assent to certain creeds or the observation of a set of religious duties, 
as appointed prayers, singing, preaching, baptism, &c, or even heathen- 
ish worship, then it may be said, the Five Nations have no religion; but if 
by religion we mean an attraction of the soul to God, whence proceeds 
a confidence in and a hunger after the knowledge of Him, then this peo- 
ple must be allowed to have some religion among them, notwithstanding 
their sometimes savage deportment; for we find some traits of a confi- 
dence in God alone, and even sometimes, though but seldom, a vocal 
calling upon Him. 

"In the year 1737 I was sent, for the first time, to Onondago, at the 
desire of the governor of Virginia. I set out the latter end of February, 
for a journey of five hundred English miles, through a wilderness where 
there was neither road or path; there was with me a Dutchman and three 
Indians." He then gives a most fearful account of the distress to which 
thev were driven — particularly on the side of a mountain where the snow 
was so hard that they were obliged to make holes in it with their hatch- 
ets to put their feet in, to keep them from sliding down the mountain. 

At length one of the Indians slipped and went down the mountain, 
but on his way he was stopped by the string of his pack hitching fast to 
the stump of a small tree. Then they were obliged to go down into 
the valley, when they looked up and saw "That if the Indian had slipped 
four or five paces farther he would have fallen over a perpendicular rock 
one hundred feet high, upon craggy pieces of rock below. The Indian 
was astonished and turned quite pale — then, with out-stretched arms, and 
great earnestness, spoke these words: 'I thank the great Lord and Gov- 
ernor of the world that He has had mercy upon me, and has been willing 
that I should live longer.' Which words I set down in my journal. 
This happened on March 25th, 1737." 

On the 9th of April he was reduced so low that he gave up all hopes 
of ever getting to his journey's end. He stepped aside and sat down 
under a tree, expecting there to die. His companions soon missed him; 

M 



198 



OF THEIR MORALITY. 



they came back and found him sitting there. "I told them that I would 
go no further, but would die there. They remained silent awhile and at 
last the old Indian said: 'Thou hast hitherto encouraged us, wilt thou now 
give up? Remember that evil days are better than good days, for when 
we suffer much, we do not sin; and sin will be drove out of us by suf- 
fering; but good days cause men to sin, and God cannot extend His mercy 
to them, but contrarywise, when it goeth evil with us, God hath compas- 
sion on us.' These words made me ashamed; I rose up and travelled on 
as well as I could." 

"Two years ago I was sent by the governor to Shamoken, on account 
of the unhappy death of John Armstrong." After he had performed his 
errand, which was to make peace by the punishment of the murderer, 
the Indians made a great teast for him; and after they had done, the 
chief addressed his people, and exhorted them to thankfulness to God — 
then began to sing, with awful solemnity, but with expressive words; the 
others accompanied him with their voices. After they had done, the 
same Indian, with great earnestness, said: 'Thanks, thanks, be to Thee 
Thou great Lord of the world, in that Thou hast again caused the sun to 
shine and hast dispersed the dark cloud. The Indians are Thine.' " 

The old king, Ockanickon, who died in 1781, in Burlington, New Jer- 
sev, just before his death sent for his brother's son, whom he had 
appointed to be king after him; and addressed him thus: "My brother's 
son, this day I deliver my heart into your bosom — mind me. I would 
have you love what is good, and keep good company; refuse what is evil, 
and by all means avoid bad company/ Brother's son, I would have you 
cleanse your ears, that you may hear both good and evil; and then join 
with the good, and refuse the evil; and when you see evil do not join with 
it, but join to that which is good. Brother's son, I advise you to be plain 
and fair with all, both Indians and Christians, as I have been. I am very 
weak or I would say more." 

After he stopped, Mr. Budd, one of the proprietors of West Jersey, 
said to him: "There is a great God who created all things; He has given 
man an understanding of what is good and bad. After this life He 
rewards the good with blessings, and the bad according to their deeds." 
The king answered: "It is very true. It is so. There are two ways, a 



OF II 1 1 : 1 K MORALITY 



L99 



broad and a straight way; there arc two paths, a broad and a straight 
path; the worst and greatest number go in the broad, the best and fewest 
in the straight path." — Smith's History of New Jersey, 1,49. 

The Indians originally showed great integrity in their dealings, espec- 
ially with oneanother. 

Col. Smith informs us that going a hunting to a very great distance, 
and having got many skins and furs by the way, very inconvenient to 
carry, they stretched them on scaffolds, and left them until their return. 
When they returned some little time afterwards, they found their skins 
and furs all safe. "Though this was a public place and Indians often 
passing and our skins hanging up to view yet there was not one stolen, 
and it is seldom that Indians do steal anything from oneanother; and 
they say they never did until the white people came among them, and 
learned some of them to lie, cheat and steal." — Page 42. 

He further informs us that being in the woods in the month of Feb- 
ruary, there fell a snow and then came a severe frost that when they 
walked caused them to make a noise by breaking through the crust, and 
so frightened the deer that they could get nothing to eat. He hunted for 
two days without food, and then returned fatigued, faint and weary. 
He related his want of success. Tontileaugo asked him if he was not 
hungry? He said he was. He then ordered his little son to bring him 
something to eat. He brought him a kettle with some bones and broth, 
made from those of a fox and wild cat that the ravens and turkey buz- 
zards had picked and which lay about the camp. He speedily finished 
his repast and was greatly refreshed. Tontileaugo gave him a pipe and 
tobacco, and when he was done smoking, he said he had something im- 
portant to tell him. Smith said he was ready to hear. He said he had 
deferred his speech because few men are in a right humor to hear good 
talk when they are extremely hungry, as they are then generally fretful 
and discomposed; but as you appear now to enjoy calmness and serenity 
of mind, I will now communicate the thoughts of my heart, and those 
things which I know to be true. 

"Brother! as you have lived with the white people, you have not had 
the same advantage of knowing that the Great Being above, feeds his 
people and gives them their meat in due season, as we Indians have, who 



200 



OF THEIR MORALITY. 



are frequently out of provisions, and yet are wonderfully supplied, and 
that so frequently that it is evidently the hand of the great Oivaneeyo, 
(this, in their language, signifies the owner and ruler of all things) that 
doeth this. Whereas the white people have large stocks of tame cattle 
that they can kill when they please, and also their barns and cribs filled 
with grain, and therefore have not the opportunity of seeing and know- 
ing that they are supported by the ruler of heaven and earth. Brother! I 
know that you are now afraid that we will all perish with hunger; but 
you have no just reason to fear' this. Brother! I have been young, but 
am now old. I have frequently been under the like circumstances. that 
we now are, and that, some time or other, in almost every year of my life y 
yet I have hitherto been supported and my wants supplied in time of 
need. Brother! Owaneeyo, sometimes suffers us to be in want, in order to 
teach us our dependence upon Him, and to let us know that we are to 
love and serve Him; and likewise to make us know the worth of the 
favors that we receive and to make us more thankful." Was this not one 
of the great ends designed by a gracious God in leading the Israelites 
through the wilderness for forty years? — Lowth Isaiah, XLI, 17-&C. — 
Vide 2 Du Pratz, 172, for account of Great Spirit. "Brother! be assured 
that you will be supplied with food, and that just at the right time; but 
you must continue diligent in the use of means. Go to sleep and rise 
early in the morning and go a hunting. Be strong and exert yourself 
like a man, and the Great Spirit will direct your way." 

The next morning Smith rose early and set off. He traveled near 
twelve miles and was just despairing when he came across a herd of buf- 
faloes and killed a large cow. He loaded himself with the beef, and 
returned to his camp and found his patron, late in the evening in good 
spirits and humor. The old Indian thanked him for his exertion, and 
commanded his son to cook it. Which he did, but eating some himself 
almost raw. They put some on to boil and when Smith was hurrying to 
take it off, his patron calmly said, let it be done enough, as if he had not 
wanted a meal. He prevented his son from eating but a little at a time, 
saying that it would hurt him, but that he might sup a few spoonsful of 
the broth. When they were all refreshed, Tontileaugo delivered a speech 
upon the necessity and pleasure of receiving the necessary supports of 



OF THEIR MORALITY 



life with thankfulness, knowing that Owaneeyo is the great giver. Some- 
time after they set oft* for home, TontileaugO, on the way, made himself a 
sw eat-house ami w ent into it, and put himself in a most violent perspira- 
tion for about fifteen minutes, singing aloud. This he did in order to 
purify himself before he would address the Supreme Being. He then 
began to burn tobaeeo and to pray. He began each petition with oh, oh, 
oh. oh. lie began his address in the following manner: 

• () Great Being! I thank thee that J have obtained the use of my legs 
again — (he had been ill with the rheumatism) that I am able to walk 
about and kill turkeys, &c., without feeling exquisite pain and misery. I 
know that Thou art a hearer and a helper, and therefore I will call upon 
Thee. Oh, oh, oh, oh!— grant that my knees and ankles maybe right 
well, and that I may be able not only to walk, but to run and to jump 
logs, as I did last fall. Oh, oh, oh, oh! grant that on this voyage we may 
kill bears, as they may be crossing the Sciota and Sandusky. Oh, 
oh, oh, oh! grant that rain may come to raise the Ollentangy about two 
or three feet, that we may cross in safety down to Sciota, without danger 
of our canoes being wrecked on the rocks. And now, O Great Being! 
Thou knowest how matters stand — Thou knowest that I am a great lover 
of tobacco, though I know not when I may get any more, I now make a 
present of the last I have unto Thee, as a free burnt offering; therefore I 
expect that Thou wilt hear and grant these requests, and I, Thy servant, 
will return Thee thanks, and love Thee for Thy gifts." 

During this time Smith was greatly affected with his prayers, until he 
came to the burning of the tobacco, and as he knew r that his patron was a 
great lover of it, when he saw him cast the last of it into the fire, it excited 
in him a kind of merriment and he insensibly smiled. The Indian 
observed him laughing, which displeased him and occasioned the fol- 
lowing address: 

'•Brother! I have something to say to you, and I hope you will not be 
offended when I tell you of your faults. You know that when you were 
reading your books in town I would not let any of the boys or anyone 
disturb you; but now when I was praying I saw you laughing. I do not 
think you look upon praying as a foolish thing. I believe you pray your- 
self. But perhaps you may think my mode and manner of praying is 



202 



OF THEIR MORALITY. 



foolish. If so you ought, in a friendly manner, instruct me. and not 
make sport of sacred things." 

Smith acknowledged his error. On this the Indian handed him his 
pipe to smoke in token of good friendship, though he had nothing to 
smoke but red willow bark. Smith then told him something of the rneth- 
od of reconciliation with an offended God, as revealed in his Bible, that 
he had with him. The Indian said he liked that story better than that of 
the French priest's; but that he thought that he was now too old to begin 
to learn a new religion; he should therefore continue to worship God in 
the way that he had been taught, and that if future happiness was to be 
had in this way of worship, he expected that he would obtain it; and that 
if it was inconsistent with the honor of the Great Spirit to accept of him 
in his own way of worship, he hoped that Owaneeyo would accept of 
him in the way Smith had mentioned, or some other way, though he 
might now be ignorant of the channel through which favor or mercy 
might be conveyed. — Page 54, 55. He added that he believed that Owa- 
neeyo would hear and help every one who sincerely waited upon Him. 

Here we see, notwithstanding the just views this Indian entertained of 
Providence, yet though he acknowledges his guilt, he expected to 
appease the Deity and procure His favor, by burning a little tobacco. 
Thus the Indian agreed with revelation in this, that sacrifice is necessary, 
or that some kind of atonement is to be made in order to remove guilt 
and reclaim the sinner to God. This, accompanied with numberless other 
witnesses is sufficient evidence of the truth of the Scriptures." 

At another time Tontileaugo informed him that there were a great 
many of the Caughnawagas and Wiandots, a kind of half Roman Cath- 
olics; but as for himself, he said that he and the priests could not agree; 
as the priests had notions that contradicted both sense and reason, and 
had the assurance to tell him that the book of God taught him these fool- 
ish absurdities; but he could not believe that the Great and Good Spirit 
ever taught them any such nonsense. And therefore he thought that the 
Indian's old religion was better than this new way of worshipping God. 



Li 



1 L 0 > a\ 



.♦»cr irzzzz, 





*HE LAST remarkable fact to be mentioned is the constant 
practice of the Indian nations in the separation of their 
women on certain occasions. 

The Southern Indians oblige their women in their lunar 
retreats, to build small huts, at a considerable distance from 
their dwelling houses, as they imagine to be sufficient, where 
they are obliged to stay, at the risk of their lives. Should they be known 
to violate this ancient law, they must answer for every misfortune that 
the people meet with. 

Anion"- the Indians on the north- west of the Ohio, the conduct of the 
women seems perfectly agreeable (as far as circumstances will permit) 
to the law of Moses. 1 , 

A young woman, at the first change in her circumstances, immediately! 
separates herself from the rest, in a hut made at some distance from the 
dwelling-houses, and remains there, during the whole time of her maladay 
or seven days. The person who brings her victuals is very careful not to 
touch her, and so cautious is she of touching her own food with her 
hands, that she makes use of a sharpened stick, instead of a fork, wit h 
which she takes up her venison, and a small ladle or spoon for her other 



204 SEPARATION OF THEIR WOMEN. 



food. When the seven days are ended, she bathes herself in water, 
washes all her clothes and cleanses the vessels she has made use of. 
Such as are of wood, she scalds and cleans with lye made of wood ashes, 
and such as are made of earth or iron, she purifies by putting into the 
fire. She then returns to her father's house and is after this looked upon 
as fit for marriage; but not before. 

A Muskoghee woman, delivered of a child, is separated in like man- 
ner for three moons, or eighty-four days. Crossweeksung (the once 
Indian town in New Jersey,) signifies the house of separation. 

By the Levitical Law, a woman was to be separated and unclean forty 
days for a man child, and eighty for a female child; from which law alone 
it appears that the Indians could have adopted this extraordinary custom, 
as they must have done all their numerous laws of .purity, and more espe- 
cially as some ot the nations observe the like distinction between the male 
and female children. 

The young women, at our people's first coining among them were 
very modest and shame-faced — both young and old women would be 
highly offended at indecent expressions, unless corrupted by drink. 
They were very neat and clean except in some instances when they neg- 
lected themselves. — Smith's History, page 138. 



INFERENCE 




AVING thus gone through with a collection of facts, that 
has taken much time, great attention and strict inquiry, 
in order to prevent the writer from being deceived him- 
self, or his being the innocent cause of deceiving others, 
he is now brought to draw some conclusions from the 
whole taken together. He would avoid all dogmatical 
gj, assertions, or unreasonable confidence in anything that he has 

collected, or any observations he has made, as he considers this a 
subject for the exercise of wisdom, research, inqury and mature reflec- 
tion. But nevertheless, while he' uses every necessary precaution, and 
wishes freedom of inquiry on the best evidence, yet he earnestly solicits 
tne reader to keep in mind that his principle design in these labors, has 
been to invite and tempt the learned and industrious, as far as they can 
obtain opportunities, to inquire further into this important and useful sub- 
ject. What could possibly bring greater declarative glory to God, to 
tend more essentially to affect and rouse the nations of the earth, with a 
deeper sense of the certainty of the prophetic declarations of the Holy 
Scriptures, and thus call their attention to the truth of the Divine revela- 
tion, than a full discovery that these wandering nations of Indians are 
the long lost tribes of Israel; but kept under the protection of Almighty 
God, though despised by all mankind; for more than two thousand years 
separated from and unknown to the civilized world? Thus wonderfully 
brought to a knowledge of their fellow men, they may be miraculously 
prepared for instruction, and stand ready at the appointed time, when 




206 



INFERENCE. 



God shall raise the signal to the nations of Europe, to be restored to the 
land and country of their fathers, and to Mount Zion, the city of David, 
their great king and head, and in this direct, positive and literal fulfilment 
of the numerous promises of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their 
pious progenitors and founders, near four thousand years ago. 

Would not such an event be the most ample means of publishing the 
all important facts of both the Old and New Testament to all the nations 
of the earth, and therebv lead all men to the acknowledgement that the 
God of Israel is a God of truth and righteousness, and that whom He 
loves, He loves unto the end? They would be convinced that His all seeing 
eye had been open upon them in all their wanderings, under all their suf- 
ferings, and that He had never forsaken them, but had shown His watch- 
ful providence over them, and that in the latter day "It shall come to pass 
that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of 
the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall 
flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, let us go up 
to the mountain of the Lord; to the house of the God of Jacob; and He 
will teach us of His ways, and we well walk in His paths: for out of Zion 
shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem " — 
Isaiah II, i — 3. 

St. Paul certainly entertained some such views of this extraordinary 
event, when he so pathetically sets forth this glorious issue of the provi- 
dence of God. Speaking of Israel: 'T say then, have they stumbled, 
that they should fall? God forbid, but rather through their fall, 
salvation is come unto the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy. Now if 
the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them 
the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. For if the 
casting away of them, be the reconciling of the world, what shall the. 
receiving of them be, but life from the dead."* 

The writer will not determine with any degree of positiveness on the 
fact, that these aborigines of our country are. past all doubt, the descend- 
ants of Jacob, as he wishes every man to draw the conclusion from the 
facts themselves. But he thinks he may without impeachment of his 
integrity or prudence, or any charge of over credulity, say, that were a 

*Rom. XI, 11—15 



[NFERENCE 



207 



people to be fokUIld, With demonstrative evidence thai their descent was 

from Jacob, it could hardly be expected at this time, that their language, 

manners, customs and habits, with their religious rites, should discover 
great similarity to those of the ancient Jews ami of their divine law, 
Without supernatural revelation, or some miraculous interposition, than 
the present nation of American Indians have done and still do, to every 
industrious and entelligent inquirer. 

This is not the first time that the idea has been advanced, of the possi- 
bility of these tribes emigrating to America, over the strait Kamschatka, 
and preserving the indelible marks of the children of Abraham, as he has 
already shown in the foregoing pages. In addition to which, many of 
the first European visitants, in a very early day, drew this conclusion 
from personal observation of the then appearance of things and persons. 
Mons. De Guignes, who wrote so long ago, in one of his memoirs, 
speaking of the discoveries of America before the time of Columbus, 
says: -'These researches, which of themselves give us great insight into 
the origin of the Americans/leads to the determination of the rout of the 
colonies sent to the continent. lie thinks the greater portion of them 
passed thither by the most eastern extremities of Asia, where the two 
continents are only separated by a narrow strait, easy to cross. He 
reports instances of women, who from Canada and Florida, have travelled 
to Tartary without seeing the ocean." In this case they must have 
passed the straits on the ice. 

Let the foregoing facts, collected in these pages, however imperfectly 
and unmethodically put together by one whose means of knowledge has 
been very scanty, be impartially examined without prejudice, and weighed 
in the scale of testimony, compared with the language, customs, man- 
ners, habits, religious prejudices, and special traditions of the Hebrews, 
especially under the impression of their being related and confirmed by 
so many authors, separated by birth, national manners, distance of time, 
strong prejudices, religious jealousies, various means of knowledge and 
different modes of communicating the facts, from Christopher Columbus, 
of glorious memory, and first discoverer of America, down to Mr. Adair, 
who lived with them in social intercourse and great intimacy for more 
than forty years, and Mr. M'Kenzie, a traveller of a late day, but the first 



208 



INFERENCE. 



who crossed from the Atlantic to the Southern ocean — Portugese, Span- 
iards, English, French, Jews and Christians, men of learning, all combin- 
ing, without acquaintance or knowledge of eachother, to establish the 
material facts, such as they are. Is it possible that the languages of so 
many hundred nations of apparent savages, scattered over a territory of 
some thousands of miles ih extent, living secluded from all civilized soci- 
ety, without grammar, letters, arts or sciences, for two thousand years, 
should, by mere accident, be so remarkable for peculiarities known in no 
other language but the Hebrew, using the same words to signify the 
same things, having towns and places by the same name? 

A gentleman, of the first character of the city of New York, well 
acquainted with the Indians of that State from his childhood, assured the 
writer of this, that when with them at a place called Cohock or Owljlat, 
now degenerated to Cook-house, yet well known, showed him a mountain 
to the west, very high, and that appeared from Cohock, much as the Nev- 
ersinks do from the sea, at first approaching the American coast, and told 
him that the Indians called it Ararat. 

Is there no weight of evidence in finding peculiar customs among the 
Indians, of the same import as those enjoined on the ancient people of 
God, and held sacred by both? Or, in each people having three sacred 
feasts, religiously attended every year, with peculiar and similar rites and 
dress, to which the males only should be admitted, and these held at cer- 
tain periods and at certain places of worship in a nation, and conforming 
with astonishing precision to eachother, while the women were wholly 
excluded by both people, and particularly that connected with one of 
them, each people should have another of a very singular and extraordi- 
nary nature in the evening, being in part a sacrifice, in which not a bone 
of the animal provided for the occasion should be broken, nor a certain 
part of the thigh eaten — that if a family were not sufficient to eat the 
whole, a neighbor might be called in to partake with them; and that if 
any be left it should religiously be burned in the fire before the rising of 
the next sun. That their houses and temple, at one of these feasts, were 
to be swept with great care, and searched in every part, with religious 
scrupulosity, that no unhallowed thing should remain unconsumed by fire. 
And that the altars for the sacrifice were to be built of unhewn stone, 



[NFER ENCE 



or on stone on which a tool had nol been Buffered to tome. Thai the 

entrails ami tat of the sacrifice w ere to he burned on the altar, and the 
body of the animal only to he eaten? When all these are compared with 

the Hebrew Divine law, given them by God Himself, from Heaven, we 
find every article religiously commanded and enforced by sovereign 
authority. 

Then examine their other religious feasts of different kinds, and reflect 
on their conformity, in a suprising manner, in times, customs and effects, 
to the Hebrew rites and ceremonies, and what rational man, of sound 
judgment, but must, at least, acknowledge that there is great encourage- 
ment to the inquisitive mind to proceed farther, and make these people 
the subject of attentive and unwearied inquiry. Add to all this their gen- 
eral appearance — their customs and manners in private life — their com- 
munion with eachother — their ceremonies and practices in society — their 
common religious and moral observations — their belief in a future state — 
their religious observation of,and most sacred respect to an ark in going out 
to war, and even their cruelties, and barbarous customs in the treatment of 
their enemies, and ought they not to be included in the enumeration? 

The strong bearings that many of the foregoing traditions have on 
their origin and descent, their manner of coming into this country and 
their future expectations, being so very similar to those experienced by 
the Jews in their exodus from Egypt, should not be left out of the scale 
of testimony. 

Can it be probable— nay, if we judge from past experience, may we 
not ask with propriety, can it be possible, unless a miracle is acknowl- 
edged, that so many Indian words should be purely Hebrew, and the 
construction of what little we know of their language, founded on the 
same principles, if there never had been any intercommunion between 
the two people. 

There can be but little doubt, were their hnguage well known to the 
learned in Europe and America, but that many more important discover- 
ies might be made, convincing to every judicious mind, that now lie in 
utter oblivion. 

Let it now be asked: What, then, is the use that should be made of 
the facts thus brought to light, partial as they are? It is answered. 



210 



INFERENCE. 



Ought not the nations of Europe and America make a solemn pause, 
and consider the Jews, "Now scattered, peeled and expecting their Mes- 
siah," to use the phraseology of the Bible, in a very different point of light, 
from that in which it has been customary to consider it? This has been 
dark indeed. They have been treated by civilized nations as the offscour- 
ings of the earth — despised, contemned, persecuted, abused, reviled and 
charged with the most abominable crimes, without evidence, unheard and 
contrary to all probability. Nay, they have been treated like the wild 
leasts of the forest — have been proscribed, banished, murdered or driven 
from one nation to another, but found safety in none. It is asserted by 
the best writers, that after the destruction of Jerusalem, in the time of 
Domitian, multitudes of Jews who had survived the sad catastrophe of 
the destruction of their city and temple, sought an asylum in various parts 
of the world. Many retired to Egypt, where a Jewish colony had 
resided from the time of Alexander; others fled to Cyrene, a large num- 
ber removed to Babylon, and joined their brethren, who had remained in 
that country ever since the captivity; some took refuge in Persia, and 
other Eastern countries. They became divided into Eastern and Western 
Jews. The Western included Egypt, Judea, Italy and other parts of the 
Roman Empire. The Eastern were settled in Babylon, Chaldea, Assyria 
and Persia. This was about the second century; but previous to the 
destruction of the temple, those Jews who resided in the Eastern countries, 
sent presents to Jerusalem; retired thither from time to time to pay their 
devotions, and acknowledge the supreme authority of the high-priest. 
J3ut after the ruin of their country, having no longer any bond of unity, 
which had before been formed by the high-priests and the temple, they 
elevated chiefs to reside over them, whom they styled princes of the 
captivity — Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. 13, page 156. 

In the year 130, Adrian, the Roman emperor, having provoked the 
Jews almost to madness and desperation, they took arms, headed by one 
Cozida, who took the name of Barchochebas, which signifies the son of a 
star, pretending to be the one prophesied of in that declaration of Balaam, 
"There shall come a star out of Jacob," &c. After various and great 
successes, he was defeated and killed, and the town of Bither, where he 
had taken refuge, obliged to surrender. There were slain in battle five 



INFERENCE 



l\ 1 



hundred and eighty thousand, besides a vast number who perished l>v 
sickness, fire, famine and other calamities. Vast numbers were exposed 
u> sale at the fair ofTerebidth, at the price of horses, and dispersed over 

the face of the earth. 

In the year 1039, the sultan, ( Jala Doullat, resolved to extirpate the 
]e\vs. For this purpose he shut up their academies, banished their pro- 
fessors, and slew the prince of the captivity, with his family. This perse- 
cution dispersed many into the deserts of Arabia, while others sought an 
asylum in the West. Benjamin, of Tudela, found a prince of the cap- 
tivity in Persia, in the twelfth century. 

In the time of the crusaders fifteen hundred were burnt at Strasbureh 
andjthirteen hundred at Mayence. According to the Jewish historians, 
five thousand, (but according to the Christian writers the number w r as 
three times greater) were either slaughtered or drowned. 

It is also said that upwards of twelve thousand were slain in Batavia. 
In the year 1238, during the reign of St. Louis, of France, two thousand 
five hundred were put to death by the most cruel tortures. 

In the year 1240, the celebrated council of Lyons passed a decree, en- 
joining all Christian princes who had Jews in their dominions, under 
penalty of excommunication, to compel them to refund to the crusaders 
all the money they had obtained by usury. This oppressed people were 
also prohibited from demanding any debts due to them from the crusa- 
ders till their return. 

In the time of Ferdinand, of Spain, and Pope Sixtus, the fourth, two 
thousand were put to death by the Inquisition. In 1492, Ferdinand and 
Isabella banished eight hundred thousand Jews from Spain. 

In 1349, a set of enthusiastic Catholics, called Flagellanti, incensed the 
populace against the Jews at Metz, and slew twelve thousand of them: 
set fire to their houses, which were destroyed with part of the town. — 
Basn age, 986. 

But as it may tend to greater certainty, and really confirms what is 
confirmed in Holy Writ, the following quotation from a Jewish author, 
complaining of their hard treatment, though long, will be excused. It is 
taken from a work entitled "An Appeal to the Justice of Kings and 
N ations,'' cited in the transactions of the Parisian Sanhedrim, page 64, 



212 



INFERENCE. 



and mentioned by Mr. Faber in his work on phrophecies: 

"Soon alter the establishment of Christianity, the Jewish nation dis- 
persed since the second destruction of its temple, had totally disappeared. 
By the light of the flames, which devoured the monuments of their 
ancient splendor, the conquerors beheld a million victims dead, or expiring 
on their ruins. 

"The hatred of the enemies of that unfortunate nation raged longer 
than the fire which had consumed its temple; active and restless it still 
pursues and opposes them in every part of the globe, over which they 
are scattered. Their persecutors delight in their torments too much to 
seal their doom by a general decree of proscription, which would put an 
end to their burthensome and painful existance. It seems as if they were 
allowed to survive the destruction of their country, only to see the most 
odious and calumnious imputations laid to their charge, to stand as the 
constant object of the grossest and most shocking injustice, as a mark for 
the insulting finger of scorn, as a sport to the most inveterate hatred; it 
seems as if their doom was incessantly to suit all the dark and bloody 
purposes which can be suggested by human malignity, supported by 
ignorance and fanaticism. Weighed clown by taxes, and forced to con- 
tribute, more than Christians, to the support of society, they had hardly 
any of the rights that it gives. If a destructive scourge happened to 
spread havoc among the inhabitants of a country, the Jews had poisoned 
the springs; or these men, cursed by heaven, had, nevertheless, incensed 
it by their prayers against the nation they were supposed to hate. Did 
sovereigns want pecuniary assistance to carry on their wars? The Jews 
were compelled to give up those riches in which they sought some con- 
solation against the oppressing sense of their abject condition; as a reward 
for these sacrifices, they were expelled from the state, which they had 
supported; and were afterwards recalled to be striped again. Compelled 
to wear exteriorily the badges of their abject state, they were everywhere 
exposed to the insults of the vilest populace. 

"When, from his solitary retreat, an enthusiastic hermit preaches the 
crusades to the nations of Europe, and a part of their inhabitants left 
their country to moisten with their blood the plains of Palestine, the knell 
of promiscuous massacre tolled before the alarm-bell of war. Millions of 



INFERENCE. 



2 1 



Jews were then murdered to glul the pious rage of the crusaders. It 
was by tearing the entrails of their brethren thai these warriors -ought 
to deserve the protection of heaven. Skulls of men and bleeding hearts 
were offered as holocausts on the alters of that God, who has no pleas- 
ure even in the blood of the innocent lamb; and ministers of peace were 
thrown into an holy enthusiasm by these bloody sacrifices. It is thus 
Basil Trevers, Goblentz and Cologn became human shambles. It is thus 
that upwards of four hundred thousand victims, of all ages, and both 
sexes, lost their lives at Alexandria and Cesaria. And is it, after having 
experienced such treatment, that they are reproached with their vices? 
Is it, afteji being for eighteen centuries the sport of contempt, that they 
are reproached with being no longer alive to it? Is it, after having so 
often glutted with their blood the thirst of their persecutors, that they 
are held out as enemies to other nations? Is it, that when they have 
been bereft of all means to mollify the hearts of their tyrants, that indig- 
nation is roused, if now and then they cast a mournful look toward the 
ruins of their temple, toward their country, where formerly happiness 
crowned their peaceful days, free from the cares of ambition and riches? 
By what crimes, have we, then, deserved this furious intolerance? What 
is our guilt: Is it in that generous constancy which we have manifested 
in defending the laws of our father? But this constancy ought to have 
entitled us to the admiration of all nations, and it has only sharpened 
us the daggers of persecution. Braving all kinds of torments, the pangs 
of death, the still more terrible pangs of life, we alone have withstood 
the impetuous torrent of time, sweeping indiscriminately in its course, 
nations, religions and countries. What has become of these celebrated 
empires, whose very name still excites our admiration by the ideas of 
splendid greatness attached to them, and whose power embraces the 
known globe? They are only remembered as monuments of vanity and 
of human greatness. Rome and Greece are no more ; their descendents 
mixed with other nations, have lost even the traces of their origin; while 
a population of a few millions of men, so often subjugated, stand the test 
of thirty revolving centuries, and the tirey ordeal of fifteen centuries of 
persecution! We still preserve laws which were given to us in the first 
dav- of the world, in the infancy of nature! The last followers of a 



214 INFERENCE. 

religion which has embraced the universe, having disappeared these fif- 
teen centuries, and our temples are still standing! We alone have been 
spared by the indiscriminating hand of time, like a column left standing 
amid the wreck of worlds and the ruin of nature." 

While this picture gives another awful trait ot the human character* 
and proves the degenerate state of man in his best natural state, and 
interests every feeling heart in the sufferings of this remarkable people, 
it also holds up, in a striking view, the threatenings of God's word and 
the literal fulfilment of them. It further shows, in the most unanswer- 
able manner, the Jews themselves being both witnesses and judges, the 
truth of the Divine Scriptures, and their strange blindness, until the end 
shall come, and the veil shall be taken from their eyes. 

Christians are assured by unerring truth that it has been the obstinacy 
and idolatry of the tribes of Judah and Israel, that have thus caused the 
anger of the Almighty to be enkindled against them, added to the awful 
invocation of Judah, that the blood of the Messiah might rest on them 
and their children. Yet, in the end, God will call their persecutors to a 
severe account for the unchristian manner in which they have carried 
the Divine judgments into execution. Little of it has been done for 
the glory of God. Moses did solemnly forewarn the Jews, that all this 
would be the consequence of disobedience to the laws and statues of 
Jehovah, and that at the very time that he encouraged them with a cer- 
tainty of his special favors, in case of their obedience. The inspired lan- 
guage is exceedingly strong: 

"And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the 
voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and do all His commandments 
which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on 
high above all nations of the earth, and all those blessings (before enu- 
merated) shall come upon thee. But it shall (also) come to pass, if thou 
wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe and do 
all His commandments and His statutes, which I command thee this day, 
that all these curses shall overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, 
and cursed shalt thou be in the field." — Deut. XXVIII, I, 2, 15, 16. 

*Had the Indians a faithful historian to write in their behalf, when their cruelties in battle were record- 
ed in their worst colors, might they not refer to the facts set forth in the few foregoing pages, and point 
to them as a contrast to their conduct, and say bebold these were your civilized nations. 



[NFERENCE 



2 1 "> 



-'The Lord shall bring £hee and thy king into a nation which neither 
ihee nor tin fathers have known, and there shalt thou serve other gods 
wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb and 
bye-word anions- all nations, whither the Lord shall lead thee. "—Ibid 36, 
17. "And thev shall be upon thee for a sign and a wonder, and upon 
thy seed forever" (or for ages). — Ibid 49. "And thou shalt serve thine 
enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger and thirst, 
and in darkness, ami in want of all things. And He shall put a yoke of 
iron upon thy neck until He has destroyed thee." — Ibid 48. "If thou 
wilt not observe to do all the words of this law, that are written in this 
book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy 
Ood." — Ibid 58. "And the Lord shalt scatter thee among all people, from 
one end of the earth to the other." — Ibid 64. "And among these nations 
thou -halt find no ease, neither «halt the sole ot thy foot find rest, but the 
Lord shalt give thee a trembling of heart and falling of eyes and sorrow 
of mind."— Ibid 95. "And thy life shalt hang in doubt before thee, 
and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy 
life. And it shall come to pass, when all these things are upon thee, 
the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt 
call them to mind, among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath 
driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey His 
voice according to all that I command thee this day. and thou and thy 
children, with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and then the Lord thy 
God will turn thy captivity and have compassion on thee and will return 
and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scat- 
tered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of heaven, 
from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He 
fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land thy 
fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and He will do thee good, 
and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the Lord thy God will circum- 
cise thy heart and the hearts of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God. with 
all thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. And the Lord 
thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them who 
hate thee, who persecute thee. And thou shalt return and obey the voice 
of the Lord thy God and do His commandments which I command thee 



216 INFERENCE. 

this day." — Ibid XXX, i — 8. Thus the Lord in the midst of ther 
severest judgments remembers mercy for the decendents of Abraham,, 
Isaac and Jacob; and these great encouragements to obedience, He fre- 
quently repeated by His prophets from time to time, as in Isaiah: "For 
Jehovah will have compassion on Jacob and will yet choose Israel. And 
he will give them rest upon their own land; and the stranger shall be 
joined to them and cleave unto the house of Jacob. And the nations 
shall take them and bring them in their own place; and the house of 
Jacob shall possess them into the land of Jehova, as servants and as hand- 
mrids; and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were, and: 
taey shall rule over their oppressors." — Lowth XIV, i, 2. 

"Ho! land spreading wide the shadow of thy wings, *which art beyond 
the river of Cush, accustomed to send messengers by sea, even in bulrush 
vessels, upon the surface of the waters. Go! swift messenger unto a 
nation dragged down and plucked; unto a people wonderful from the 
beginning hitherto." — Chap. XVIII, 1, 2. "At that season a present 
shall be led to the Lord of Hosts, a' people dragged away and plucked, 
even of a people wonderful from the beginning hitherto; a nation expect- 
ing, expecting and trampled under foot, whose land rivers have spoiled,, 
unto the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, Mount Zion." — Ibid 7. 
"For behold Jehovah shall come as a fire; and His chariot as a whirl- 
wind; to breathe forth His anger in a burning heat, and His rebuke in. . 
flames of fire. For by fire shall Jehovah execute judgment, and by His 
sword upon ail flesh; and many shall be the slain of Jehovah." — Ibid 
LXVI, 15, 19/ 

Again in Jeremiah the subject is taken up: "For lo! the days come 
saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel 
and Judah, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their 
fathers and they shall possess it." — Jerem. XXX, 3. "Therefore fear not 
O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord, neither be dismayed O Israel, for lo! 

* The translation of these verses is taken from Mr. Faber, who quotes Bishop Horsley in saying: "The- 
shadow of wings is a very usual image in prophetic language, for the protection afforded by the strong to . 
the weak. God's protection of His servants is described as their being safe under the protection of His 
wings. And in this passage 'the broad shadowing wing' may be intended to characterize some great people 
who shall be famous for the protection they shall give to those whom they receive into their alliance." "It 
is not impossible however, and certainly not incongruous with the figurative language of prophecy, that 
since the messengers described in this prediction are plainly a maratime nation, the shadowy wings here. ■ 
spoken of may mean the sails of their ships. 



INFKRKNCK 



2 1 ; 



1 will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; 
and Jacob shall returnand shall be in rest and be <i u ' c '' ;m<1 none shal 
make him afraid. For 1 am with thee saith the Lord, to save thee; 

though I make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee; 
yet will I not make a full end of thee; but I will corred thee in measure, 

and will not Leavethee altogether unpunished." "Therefore all they who 
devour thee shall be devoured, and all thine adversaries, every one of 
them, shall go into captivity, and they who spoil thee, shall be spoiled; 
and all who prey upon thee, will I give for a prey."— Verse 16. 

Remember this and show yourselves men; 

Reflect on it deeply, O ye apostates!— 

I am God nor is there anything like me. 

From the beginning, making known the end; 

And from early times the things that are not yet done; 

Saving my counsel shall stand, 

And whatever I have willed I will effect. 

Calling from the East the eagle, 

And from the land far distant, the man of my counsel; 
As I have spoken so will I bring it to pass; 
I have formed the design, and I will execute it. 

— Lowth's Isaiah XLVI, S— n. 
"And this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of 
Israel, saith the Lord, 1 will put my law in their inward parts, and write 
It in their hearts, and will be their God and they shall be my people."— 
Vide also XXXI, i, 24. Joel also is very express upon this subject. 
-"For behold, says He. in those days, and in that time, when I shall bringj 
again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, 
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehosaphat, and will plead 
-with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they 
lhave scattered among the nations, and parted my land.' —Chap. Ill, 
2. 

From all this it appears, with great certainty, that in the latter day the 
aiouse of Israel shall be discovered, and brought from the land of their 
<captivitv afar oft', to the city of God, the new Jerusalem, that shall be 
Testored to more than its former glory. And that all those who have 



218 



INFERENCE. 



oppressed and despised them, wherever they are, will become subjects of 
the ang er and fury of Jehovah their God. 

If then it is plain, that the Israelites have heretofore suffered the just 
indignation of the Almighty, for their sins and all His threatenings and 
fury have literally and most exactly been poured out upon them, according; 
to the predictions of His servant Moses, what have not their enemies and: 
oppressors to fear, in the great day of God's anger, when He cometh to 
avenge His people, who have been dear to Him as the apple of His eye?' 
Is not the honor of God as much concerned in executing His threatenings, 
on one as on the other? Will it not be wise then to consider our ways 
betimes, and sincerely to repent of all improper conduct of oppressions 
and destruction to any, who may turn out to have been the continual 
objects of God's regard, though suffering under His just displeasure? If" 
His word has been yea and amen, in punishing the people of His choice, 
because of their disobedience, what hope can those gentiles have, who- 
are found to continue in opposition to his positive commandments? 

Let all, then, carefully attend to the word of the Lord, as spoken by 
his prophets, and watch the signs of the times, seeking to know the wilL 
of God, and what he expects from those who are awakened to see their 
error. Much is to be done when the signal is set up for the nations; and 
these children of God's watchful providence, shall be manifestly discov- 
ered. They are to be converted to the faith of Christ, and instructed in 
their glorious prerogatives, and prepared and assisted to return to their 
own land and their ancient city, even the city of Zion, which shall be- 
come a praise in all the earth. Let not our unbelief, or other irreligious 
conduct, with a want of a lively, active faith in our Almighty 
Redeemer, become a stumbling block to the outcasts of Israel, wherever 
they may be. They will naturally look to the practice and example of 
those calling themselves Christians for encouragement. Who knows but 
God has raised up these United States in these latter days, for the very- 
purpose of accomplishing His will in bringing His beloved people to- 
their own land. 

We are a maritime people — a nation of seafaring men. Our trade and' 
commerce have greatly increased for years past, except during our late 
troubles. We may, under God, be called to act a great part in this won- 



INFERENCE 



2 1 



derful and increasing drama, And if not alone, we may certainly assisl 
in a union with other maritime powers of Europe. The people oi Great 

Britain arc almost miraculously active in disseminating the Gospel 
throughout the known world. The same spirit will carry them to accom- 
plish the whole will of ( iod. The time is hastening on, and if we have 

any understanding of the prophetic declarations of the Bible, it cannot 
be far off. "And I said, how long, O. Jehovah! and He said, Until cities 
be laid waste, so that there he no inhabitants and houses, so that there be 
no man : and the land be left utterly desolate, until Jehovah shall remote 
man far away, and there be many a deserted woman in the midst of the 
land. And though there be a tenth part remaining in it, even this shall 
undergo a repeated destruction. Yet as the ilex and the oak. though cut 
down, hath its stock remaining, a holy seed shall be the stock of the 
nation."* x 
• Have not these wonderful things come to pass, and therefore have we 
not reason to believe the time of the end is near at hand. When Tiglah 
Pilnezer carried away the tribes ftom Samaria, he left about a tenth part 
of the common people behind. Salmanazer, his successor, some few 
years after, less than twenty, came and carried the rest into captivity 
except a few straglers about the country, and those who had taken ref- 
uge in Jerusalem. Even this small remnant were afterwards taken by 
Esarrhaddon and Nebuchadnezzar, and carried to Babylon, and the whole 
land left desolate, in strict fullfilment of the divine word. And even yet 
a holy seed shall still appear to become the stock of the nation. 

What then, is the use that Christians ought to make of a discovery of 
this nature, should they be convinced of the proposition? First, to adore 
with humble reverence the inscrutable riches of the great God, and his 
infinite wisdom in his conduct towards his servants, Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob, and their posterity. Secondly, to rejoice in the absolute certainty 
of the fulfillment of the promises as well as the threatenings of His holy 
worc l — "For though heaven and earth may pass away, yet not a tittle of 
His word shall pass away, but all shall be fulfilled." Thirdly, to enjoy the 
present benefit of the glorious hope set before them, even in the view of 
immediate death, knowing that when Christ shall come the second time, 
"in His own glory, and the glory of the Father, His saints shall come 



220 



INFERENCE. 



with Him.' 1 — Coloss. Ill, 4. '"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose 
again, even so, them also who sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him; 
for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of an arch-angel, and with the trump of God; and then shal 
Christians be forever with the Lord/' — 1 Thess. IV, 14 — 17. Fourthly, 
this makes the grave the Christian's priviledge and consolation. As the 
Scriptures positively declare that flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- 
dom of heaven, this would greatly weaken their faith and hope, had they 
n*ot been assured that they would leave flesh and blood in the grave, and 
rise immortal and incorruptable through the power of the Redeemer, 
who had previously sanctified the grave by his own presence. 

But after all, suppose we should be wholy mistaken in all our conject- 
ures, and should treat these aborigines of this land with great kindness 
and compassion, under the mistaken opinion of their descent? Would 
any people have reason to repent acts of humanity and mercy to these 
wretched outcasts of society? Have not Europeans been the original 
cause of their sufferings? Are we not in possession of their lands? 
Have we not been enriched by their labors? Have they not fought our 
battles, and spilt their blood for us, as well as against us? If we speak as 
an European nation, has not a large proportion of their numbers perished 
in our wars, and by our means? Ought not we, then, now at this day of 
light and knowledge, to think much of hearkening to the voice of mercy 
and the bowels of compassion in their behalf? But if it should turn out 
that our conjectures are well founded, what aggravated destruction may 
we not avoid, by an obedient and holy temper, and exerting ourselves to 
keep the commands of the statutes of the God of Israel? "Behold, at 
that time, I will undo all who afflict thee: and I will save her who halt- 
eth, and gather her who is driven out. And I will get them fame and 
praise in every land, where they have been put to shame. At that time 
I will bring you again, even in the time that I gather you, for I will 
make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I 
turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord." — Zeph. Ill, 
19 — 20. 

We are very apt, and indeed it is a common practice to blame the 
Jews and charge them with great perverseness,and call them an obstinate 



[NFERENCE 



and stiff-necked race, when we read of the grace and mercy of Jehovah 
towards them, in the multiplied blessings promised in their obedience, 
and die awful curses and severe threatenings in case of disobedience. 

We profess to be astonished at the hardness of their hearts and abomin- 
able wickedness of their conduct, committed in direct opposition to so 
much light and knowledge. Yet would not any impartial person, under 
a just view of our conduct to them since the discovery of this country, 
and the practice of a large majority of those who call themselves Chris- 
tians, draw a pretty certain conclusion that we had not much to insist on 
in our favor. That most certainly we have not done to them as we 
would have expected from them, under a change of circumstances. We 
go on, under similar threatenings of the same Almighty JSeing. We 
show much of the same hardness of heart, under the like denunciations 
of vengeance, that He will afflict and destroy without mercy, those 
nations who join in oppressing His people, without regard to H is honor 
and glory. He will be found no respecter of persons; but will fulfill, not 
only His promised blessings, but will with equal certainty inflict all His 
threatened curses on obstinate offenders. "Who is wise, and he shall 
understand these things? Prudent, and he shall know them? For all the 
ways of the* Lord are tight, and the just shall walk in them, 
but the transgresssor shall fall therein." — Hosea XIV, 9. "And the Lord 
answered me and said, Write the vision and put it plain upon a table, 
that he may run who readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed 
time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it, 
because it will surely come — it will not tarry." — Habbakkuk II. 2 — 



HISTORICAL 



4KETTO*0Mi0U™i* 




HE famous Ferdinand de Soto was sent by the Spaniards to 
succeed Narvaez, as governor of Florida. "He attacked 
the natives everywhere, and everywhere committed 
i^'^Y ^ reat s l au ght.er; destroyed their towns, and subsisted his 



ft 



men on the 



found in them. He crossed the 



provisions 

Mississippi, explored the regions to the west of it, and in 1542 ■ 
ended his days on Red River." — Page 8. 
In 1562, the French growing jealous of the success of the Spaniards, 
admiral Coligni fitted out a fleet, with a colony of French protestants, 
under Rebaud. They landed in Florida, and planted the settlers about 
thirty miles from St. Augustine, where they erected a fort for their pro- 
tection, and called it Ft. Charles, in honor of Charles IV. Astonishment 
seized the Spaniards at this unexpected intrusion. However the Span- 
ish governor, Menandez, after recovering from the first shock, assembled 
his forces, attacked Ft. Charles, and carried it by storm. Those misera- 
ble French who escaped the sword, were doomed to the halter, with this 
label on their breasts: "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." — Page 5. 

Of all the Indians known to the French, the Natchez were the most 
serviceable, and at the same time the most terrible. Settlers at various 



OF LOUISIANA 



223 



times planted themselves among them so as to become a large body. 
They were favorably received by the Natchez, who supplied them with 
provisions, assisted them in their tillage, ami in building their houses and 

indeed saved them from famine and death. They soon began to encroach 
on the rights of the Indians, and excited their jealousy. The Xatehez pos- 
sessed the strongest disposition to oblige, and would have continued emi- 
nently useful to the French settlers, if the commandant had not treated 
them with indignity and injustice. 

The first dispute was in 1723, when an old warrior owed a soldier a 
debt in com. When payment was demanded, the warrior alleged the 
corn was not ripe, hut it should be delivered as soon as possible. They 
quarreled, when the soldier cried murder. When the warrior left him to 
go to his village, a soldier of the guard fired at him and shot him. The 
commandant would not punish the offender. Revenge, the prominent 
passion of the Indians, drove them to arms. They attacked the French 
in all quarters— but by the influence of a noted chief, peace was restored, 
which prevented the utter extermination of the settlers. Peace was made 
and duly ratified by Mons. Branville; yet he took advantage of it to 
inflict a sudden and dreadful blow on these innocent people. He pri- 
vately brought seven hundred men— he attacked the defenseless Indians 
—slaughtered them in their huts, and demanded the head of their chief, 
with which they were obliged to comply. This wanton slaughter lasted 
four days. A peace was then made but confidence was destroyed. 
Shortly after, a French officer accidently met a sachem called Stingser- 
pent, who seemed to avoid him. The officer said : "Why do you avoid 
me. we were once friends; are we friends no longer?" The indignant 
chief replied: "Why did the French come into our country? We did 
not go to seek them. They asked us for land, and we told them to take 
it where they pleased ; there was enough for them and for us. The same 
sun ought to enlighten us both, and we ought to walk together as friends 
in the same path. We promised to give them food — assist them to 
build and to labor in the fields. We have done so." In 1729 the com- 
mandant of the fort had treated them so ill. that they obtained his being 
summoned to New Orleans to answer for his conduct. This gave the 
Indians much joy. The officer found means to be sent hack, reinstated 



224 



HISTORICAL SKETCHES 



in his command. He now determined to indulge his malice against the 
Iudians. He suddenly resolved to build a town on the site of a village 
belonging to one of the sachems, which covered a square of three miles 
extent. He. sent for the sun or chief, and directed him to clear his huts 
and remove to some other place. The chief replied that their ancestors 
Jiad lived there for many years, and that it was good for their decendants 
to occupy the same ground. This dignified language served only to exas- 
perate the haughty commandant. He declared that unless the village 
was abandoned in a few days, the inhabitants of it should repent of their 
obstinacy! The Indians finding a bloody conflict was inevitable, they 
laid their plans accordingly. They tried by the best excuses in their 
power to delay the execution of his plan; but he treated all their propos- 
als with disdain, and menaced immediate destruction if he was not 
gratified. The Indians ever fruitful in expedients, got permission to 
wait till their harvest was got in. During this interval, short as it was, 
they formed their plan. They held a council and unanimously resolved 
to make one great effort to defend the tombs of their fathers. They pro- 
ceeded with caution, yet one of their women betrayed them. The com- 
mandant would not hearken to it, but punished the informant. Near 
the close of the last day of November, 1729, the Grand Sun, with some 
warriors, repaired to the fort with their tribute of corn and fowls agreed 
upon. They secured the gate and other passages, and instantly deprived 
the soldiers of the means of defense. So well was this plan laid that all 
opposition was in vain. The massacre throughout the settlement, among 
the men, was general. The slaves and some of the women were spared. 
The chiefs and warriors disdaining to stain their hands with the blood 
of the commander, he fell by the hands of one of the meanest of the 
Indians. In short, the whole settlement, consisting of about seven hun- 
dred men, was wholly destroyed. They proceeded to two neighbor- 
ing settlements at Yazous and Wastulu, which shared the same fate, 
a very few escaped to carry the news to the capital. 

The governor of New Orleans persisting in destroying this nation, they 
fled over the Mississippi, and settled one hundred and eighty miles up the 
Red River, where they built a fort for their protect'on. Aftsr some 
time the governor pursued them to this place with cannon &c, b3sieged 



OF LOUISIANA. 



225 



the fort, and they were obliged to surrender at discretion. The women 
and children were reduced tos!avery, and scattered among the planta- 
tions. The men were sent to St. Domingo as slaves. Their villages at 
first consisted of twelve hundred souls. Of all the [ndian*, they were 
the most polished and civili/.ed. They had an ei tabHshed religion 
among them, in many particulars ration;. 1 and consist* nt-^as likewise 
regular orders of priesthood. They had a temple dedicated to the Great 
Spirit, in which they preserved the eternal fire. Xo doubt these tokens 
Of their religion w ere obscured and perverted by tradition— but this is 
rather the misfortune than the crime of the Indians. This remark is 
applicable to all the aborigines of America. Their civil polity partook 
of the refinement of a people apparently in some degree learned and >ci- 
ehtific. They had kings or chiefs— a kind of subordinote nobility— and 
the usual distinctions created by rank were well understood and pre- 
served among them. They were just, generous and humane, and never 
failed to extend relief to the objects of distress and misery. They were 
well acquainted with the properties of medical plants, and the cures 
they performed, particularly among the French, were almost incredible. 
They were remarkable for not deeming it glorious to destroy the human 
species, and for this reason seldom waged any other than defensive 
war. 

In short, the history of the European wars against the Indians, and 
particularlv the Spanish, for more than two centuries, afford nothing but 
a series of complicated crimes, the black catalogue of which will continue 
to excite in every breast, the mingled emotions of pity and indignation. 
They made war on defenseless nations without provocation — spilt 
oceans of blood and involved millions of their fellow creatures in misery. 
They trampled on all those laws deemed sacred by the civilized world, 
and their misdeeds find no other excuse than what is derived from the 
gratification of their avarice. 

They not only enslaved" the prisoners taken in battle, but likewise those 
peaceable and effeminate people who submitted themselvei at discretion. 
They compelled them to labor in the mines of Hispanolia ami Cuba, 
where vast numbers perished. The natives of Hispanolia. at Colum- 
bus' first arrival, amounted to more than a million of inhabitants — fifteen 



226 



HISTORICAL SKETCHES 



years after they amounted to less than sixty thousand. In Cuba, 
upwards of five hundred thousand perished — a similar destruction took 
place on the continent. 

The aborigines in general are extremely scrupulous in regard to the 
fulfilment of national compacts; though in their individual -capacities they 
are less honest and more inclined to evade their engagements. Their 
want of faith in most instances, where it has been manifested may be 
traced either to the hard conditions imposed on them, or the advantage 
taken of their ignorance. Whoever will attentively examine into the 
merits of the numerous quarrels between them and the whites, will be 
apt to find that the latter were almost uniformly the aggressors. 

A remarkable fact with respect to Florida. While it was in the hands 
of the English, a plan was concerted by Sir William Duncan and Dr. 
Turnbull, to entice a colony of Greeks to settle in this country. It was 
represented to them in the most favorable light. They were promised 
fertile fields and lands in abundance, and also transportation and subsis- 
tence. Fifteen hundred engaged in this undertaking; but what was their 
surprise when they were ushered into New Smyria, about seventy miles 
to the eastward of St. Augustine, which they found to be a desolate wil- 
derness, without the means of support. Instead of being proprietors of 
land, there was none for them, but upon lease for ten years, and some 
could not obtain it on any terms. Hence they became laborers to the 
planters as slaves, and suffered hunger and nakedness. Overseers were 
placed over them, who goaded them with the lash. They were kept 
together and numbers were crowded together in one mess. The poor 
wretches were not allowed to procure fish for themselves, although 
plenty were in the sea at their feet. People were forbidden to furnish 
them with victuals. Severe jDunishments were decreed against those 
who gave and those who received the charitable boon. Under this treat : 
ment many died, especially the old people. At length in 1769, seized 
with despair, they rose on their cruel tyrants and made themselves some 
small vessels. But they were seized by the militia, and five of the 
principals suffered death. This could scarcely be believed, considering 
the reputed humanity of the English, had it not been verified by the sol- 
emn report of a British officer who was an eye witness. 



or LOUISIANA. 



221 



Phaser's key t«> ma prophecies. 
Speaking of the image oi Ehe beast, that it should speak, &c.,&c, jays, 
the pope put to death in a variety of forms, such as dared t<> oppose him. 
He excluded from the privileges of civil society all such as did not submit 
to his claims and authority. See the decree of Alexander the third in 

Synod of Tours — the bull of Martin against the errors of WicklifFe and 
lhiss. annexed to the council of Constamace. There it is decreed -That 
men of this sort be not permitted to have houses to rear families, to make 
contracts, to carry on traffic or business of any kind, or to enjoy the com- 
forts of humanity in common with the faithful." These are almost the 
words which prophecy has put into the mouth of the image. 

See the bull of Paul the third, against Henry the eighth, and that of 
Paul the fifth in the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth. 

An energetical letter dated London, January 19th, 1791, signed by three 
vicars apostolic of England, expressly prohibits the Catholics of that 
kingdom taking an oath prescribed by the government; though that oath 
contains nothing inconsistent with Catholic principles, but a renuncia- 
tion of the Pope's supremacy in temporals. They thus express them- 
selves: 

''The apostolic vicars (in the above mentioned energetical letter, dated 
October 21, 17S9) declared that none of the faithful clergy or laity, ought 
not to take any new oath, or sign any new declaration, or doctrinal mat- 
ters, or subscribe any new instrument wherein the interests of religion are 
concerned, without the previous approbation of their respective bishops, 
and they required submission to those determinations. The altered oath 
has not been approved by us, and therefore cannot be lawfully or con- 
scientiously taken by any of the faithful of our districts." Here the lamb- 
like beast speaks like a dragon. Ten very respectable Catholics in Eng- 
land met together as a committee, and protested against this letter, as 
inculcating principles hostile to the government, and contrary to the faith 
and moral character of the Catholics. 

Our adversaries account the visibility of their church as a community 
from the apostolic days, a demonstration of its being the true church 
while they ask us, with an air of triumph, where was your church before 
Luther? (In the wilderness, where it is yet.) The prophecy furnishes a 



228 



HISTORICAL SKETCHES 



/ 



direct answer. The true church of Christ ought to be invisible as a com- 
munity for a period of twelve hundred and sixty years, and during all 
that time a harlot, pretending to be the spouse of Christ, and ought to 
propagate her idolatries successfully and extensively, throughout the 
world . 

The divisions among protestants have been urged by their adversaries 
as an argument against them; and the ineffectual efforts of learned and 
pious men to unite them into one community, have proved stumbling 
blocks to the faith of some of their friends. But by the prophetic repre- 
sentation, matters ought to be as they are. Had protestants united 
together into one society, the church of Christ would have been visible 
as a community, which during the currency of twelve hundred and sixty 
years would flatly contradict the prophecy; but the several protestant 
churches having no connection with eachother in government and ordi- 
nances like the ancient church, they constitute only individual members 
of the universal church, which, as a body politic, is invisible now, as it 
was in the tenth century. While this view should reconcile us to a cer- 
tain degree of separation among protestants during the currency ot the 
twelve hundred and sixty years, it ought to remove wholly the violence 
of party spirit and every degree of bitterness and rancor which they have 
too frequently shown to each other. A violent party spirit is founded 
on this principle, that those who possess it are the true church of Christ. 
Hence they argue that those who separate from them are schismatics or 
heretics, and therefore ought to be treated as heathens and publicans. 
But the ground of their reasoning is false; according to the prophecy no 
particular church or part, now on earth, may claim the'exclusive privilege 
of the church. Whoever does, acts the part of a daughter, usurping the 
place of the mother, and requiring that subjection of her sisters which 
the law of God does not require. — Page 134 — 5 — 162. 



220-0 





WORKS 






N FEW localities are the works of the Mound Builders more 
extensive, more numerous, more labyrinthine, more diversified 
in style and character, more gigantic in proportions, than are 
those at Newark, Ohio. Mr. Atwater, one of Ohio's earliest 
archaeologists, more than two generations ago, personally made 
more or less thorough examinations of a large proportion of the 
most celebrated of the works of the Mound Builders in Ohio, 
and also careful mathematical surveys of many of the most elab- 
orate and prominent of them elsewhere; after having done so he charac- 
terized those at Newark as "The most extensive and intricate, as well as 
the most interesting in the State, perhaps in the world!" On many 
accounts he declared them to be "Quite as remarkable as any in North 
America." 

This group of Mound Builders' works first became known to the white 
settlers of the Licking Valley eighty years ago, all of them then being 
covered with a dense growth of forest trees, many of them having a cir- 



232 



MOUND BUILDERS' WORKS 



cumference of more than ten feet, and showing by their concentric circles, 
to have had a growth of more than five hundred years. A heavy under- 
growth also covered the works', almost hiding them from view. In 
short, they were situated in the wilderness, when the pioneers of the val- 
ley discovered them, having never suffered from the ravages of the plow,, 
noi had the gigantic growth of walnut, sugar, maple, beech, oak and 
wild cherry trees that stood upon their banks and within their enclosures 
ever been despoiled by the woodman's axe. 

To give assurance to the reader of the accuracy cf the descriptions, the 
writer hereof states that he has been familiar with the locality and 
antiquities above described more than fifty-five years. He saw them 
while yet more than nine-tenths of this renowned triangle of ancient 
works had been undisturbed by the devastating plow and harrow of the 
pioneer, or by the destructive axe of the inconoclastic woodsman. In 
those days, all of "ye olden time," he sometimes "followed the chase." 
though rather as an amateur hunter, during a period running through 
many years, he pursued the game over these interesting works, which 
were still covered with a dense undergrowth and trees of gigantic size; 
therefore, it may be claimed that he has been writing about something of 
which he ought to have some knowledge. 

He early became acquainted with Mr. Atwater, the first Ohio writer 
on our Archaeology; read his description of these ancient works not many 
years after the American Antiquarian Society published them; was long 
and intimately acquainted with Judge Holmes, who surveyed them for 
him; had interchanged opinions with those gentlemen and other anti- 
quarians respecting them; had lived within sight of, and on the border of 
these extensive works of the Mound Builders, more than fifty years; 
moreover, had made measurements of some of them; he has therefore 
described works which have been under his own often repeated obser- 
vation, of which he has actual personal knowledge, and of which he has 
had ample opportunities to acquire information; stimulated withal by a 
wish and earnest desire to acquire all the knowledge attainable respecting 
them. 

The Raccoon and South Fork creeks unite on the south-western bor- 
ders of Newark, and these ancient works cover an area of three or four 



NEAR NEWARK, OHIO. 



333 



square miles between these streams and contiguous to them, extending 
about two miles up the Raccoon and a less distance up the South Fork. 
These works are situated on an elevated plain forty or fifty feet above the 
Streams, the Raccoon forming the northern boundary of said plain, and 
the South Fork its southern boundary. The streams come together 
nearly at a right angle, the three or four square miles of land, therefore, 
covered with these ancient works, situated between said creeks, and 
•extending several miles up both of them from their junction, is in form, 
very nearly an equilateral triangle. 

The foregoing works consisted of earth mounds, both large and small, 
in considerable numbers, of parallel walls or embankments, of no great 
but tolerably uniform height; of small circles, semi or open circles, all of 
low, but well-marked embankments or walls; of enclosures of various 
forms and heights, such as large circles — one parallelogram, one octagon, 
and perhaps, others which may have become partially or wholly obliter- 
ated under the operation of the plow or through the devastating action 
of the elements, their banks having been originally of small elevation, 
and among them one of the class designated as "effigy mounds." This 
remaining in a good state of preservation, situated w-ithin and about the 
center of the largest circular enclosure, known as the "Old Fort," and 
will be described further on, only remarking here that it is a representa- 
tion of an immense bird "on the wing," and is called "Eagle Mound." 

By reference to the cut representing the Newark earthworks, it will 
be seen that there is, north of the railroad, a circular fort or enclosure, 
marked thirty acres (which, however, should be only twenty), connected 
by parallel banks, with another of octagon form, having eight openings, 
with a protection mound or embankment covering each of the entrances. 
This contains fifty acres, and a large portion of it has been plowed over, 
although the banks are readily traceable, and the portion of it that 
remains in the woods, still show the banks to be five or six feet in height. 
The gateways are about fifteen feet wide, and the walls inside of each are 
of the same height and size of those of the enclosure generally, and are 
about four feet longer than the width of the openings or gateways. The 
walls of this work, as well as those of the circular enclosure with which 
it is connected, are as nearly perpendicular as the earth could be made to 



234: MOUND BUILDERS' WORKS 

lie, but are quite a number of feet in width on the top, even where the- 
plow has not run over them. It will be observed that there is a consider- 
able enlargement of the banks of the circular enclosure, directly opposite 
the entrance into it, through the parallel walls, or covered way connect- 
ing it with the octagon enclosure. This was, doubtless, an observatory, 
and commanded an extensive view over the plains and over the whole 
system of works. This observatory has been greatly mutilated and 
despoiled by excavations into it and by the removal of considerable of 
the stone and earth that composed it; still, although in ruins, it is twenty 
feet or more in height, while the banks of the enclosure, generally, are not 
more than ten feet. Under this observatory, it is probable, that there 
was a secret subterranean passage to a stream that flowed near. 

The cut shows three covered ways or parallel walls that lead across 
the railroad to other portions of this group of works. One conducts to 
a circular work, now almost obliterated, situated at the crossing of the 
canal by the railroad. Another leads directly into the square enclosure, 
marked twenty acres, which has an entrance at each corner, and also at 
the north-east and south-west sides, the latter two having covered ways 
to the enclosure. All the gateways or entrances are protected by small 
mounds inside, as in the case of the octagon. The Ohio canal passes 
through this work, and so also does an extensively travelled State road; 
and the portion of this square enclosure whose banks have not been thus 
obliterated has been cultivated for at least half a century, so that its banks 
or walls, which, probably, were never very high, are now barely trace- 
able. 

None of these works except the "Old Fort," had any moats or ditches 
connected with them, either inside or outside. Parallel walls, with the 
space between widening as they approach the gateway of the "Old 
Fort," the most gigantic of all the works of this group, connected this , 
square enclosure with it, as well as with other works of this group. The 
parallel walls that extends southward from one of the gateways of the 
octagonal work, as is seen in the cut, was traceable many miles, in the 
direction of the Hockhocking river, at some point north of Lancaster, 
where Mr. Atwater thought it connected with other similar works. It 
is not known to the writer, however, that any effort was ever made to 



NEAR NEWARK, OHIO. 



follow these parallel walls to ascertain with any certainty that the space 
between them did or did not serve the purpose of a road between this 
point and the Hockhocking. 

"The Old Fort is situated a mile and a half in a southwesterly direction 
from the court-house in Newark, and belongs to the class of Mound 
Builders 9 works known as enclosures. It is not a true circle, the respect- 
ive diameters being eleven hundred and fifty and twelve hundred and 
fifty feet. Its banks, nearly a mile in length, were formed by throwing 
up the earth from the inside, which left a ditch of sloping sides, ten 
feet (in many places more) in depth, and ranges, in perpendicular height, 
measuring from bottom of ditch to top of bank, from twenty to thirty 
feet. This enclosure, which embraces within it about twenty-seven 
acres of land, was constructed on level ground, and the ditch above 
described was often seen during the earlier decades of the present cen- 
tury, partially, and sometimes wholly, filled with water all around the 
circle. From some cause it has not held water of late years to any great 
extent. Viewed from the outside, the embankment does not rise more 
than ten or fifteen feet above the surrounding ground, but observed from 
its top, the eye taking in the depth of the ditch, it seems, of course, much 
higher, so as to correspond in height, at least, to the figures above 
given. 

"The Old Fort has an entrance or gateway, which is flanked by a high 
bank or parapet on either side of it, running outward forty yards. The 
gateway and parallel walls or parapets are on the eastern side of the cir- 
cle, and the ditch which follows it also extends to the termination of the 
parallel banks that cover the entrance. Here the banks are highest, the 
parallel walls, as well as those which form the circle immediately adjoin- 
ing them at the gateway, reaching, for a short distance, a perpendicular 
height of at least thirty feet, measuring from the bottom of the ditch, or 
twenty feet, measuring on the outside. The gateway or entrance meas- 
ures seventy -five feet between the ditches or moats, and between the 
parapets or banks of earth that flank the entrance, one hundred and thirty 
feet. 

"Trees of a large size are still growing upon the banks, all around the 
circle, as well as upon the parallel walls at the entrance. They are equal 



236 



MOUND BUILDERS' WORKS 



in size to those that are yet found both on the outside of the enclosure 
and within it, and of the same varieties. Some ol them measure ten feet 
in circumference and are still thrifty, giving no indications of decay. 
One of the largest trees that stood on this embankment was cut down in 
1815, and its concentric circles showed that it had attained the venerable 
age of five hundred and fifty years. Many others of its contemporaries, 
too, are still flourishing, and enjoying an equally vigorous 'green old 
age.' This fact may be borne in mind as indicating the antiquity of this 
wonderful work, especially when taken in connection with the strong 
probability that this tree, of now more than six centuries ago, was more 
likely of the second or third growth of trees than of the first, after the 
Mound Builders had erected this enclosure, which is only one of the 
extensive series of labyrinthine works, whose embankments measure 
many miles in length, and which, by low parallel banks were connected 
with others of similar character, as remote from them as are those of the 
Hockhocking and other distant places. 

"In the middle of the Old Fort is an elevation, evidently artificial, 
which never fails to attract the attention of the observing, and is gener- 
ally designated as Eagle Mound. It is full six feet high, and is in the 
form and shape of an eagle in flight, with wings outspread, measuring 
from tip to tip two hundred and forty feet, and from head to tail two 
hundred and ten feet, and is clearly of the effigy class of the work of the 
Mound Builders. It faces the entrance, and therefore lies in an east and 
west direction, its wings extending- north and south. Excavations 
made many years ago into the center of this earthern figure, where the 
elevation is greatest, developed an altar built of stone, upon which were 
found ashes, charcoal and calcined bones, showing that it had been used 
for sacrificial purposes. 

"Many have held the opinion that the Old Fort was a military work, 
constructed for defense, but its location on a level plain, its symmetrical 
form and inside ditch, and the indications of the presence of fire, seen on 
the altar, and its sacrificial uses, so clearly suggested, all go to render this 
opinion to be erroneous, or to say the least, one highly improbable. All 
the known facts pertaining to it go to raise the presumption that within 
its enclosures were conducted, by Mound Builders, the rights and cere- 



NEAR NEWARK, OHIO. 



237 



monies of their religion, they having manifestly been a religious and 
superstitious race, given to the practice of offering up human as well as 
animal sacrifices. 

"Others have believed that the Old Fort was the seat of government of 
the Mound Builders, and that their monarch resided here; and still others 
have held that within this enclosure they practiced their national games 
and amusements, similar, probably to the Olympic, Nemean, Pythean and 
Isthmian games that were so universally popular with the enlightened 
Greeks during the 'Lyrical age of Greece.' Others, still, hold different 
opinions, but I think the weight of the evidence is altogether in favor of 
the theory that the Old Fort, one of the most renowned of the Mound 
Builders' works, was constructed for the uses of a sacred enclosure, and 
was, therefore, primarily built and used for purposes connected with 
their religion, albeit it may also have been their seat of government, and 
residence of their monarch; and may, possibly, also have been sometimes 
used for the practice of their national games. Least likely of all is the 
notion that it was constructed for military purposes, or was ever used as 
a defensive work. 

"It was in October, 1800, when Isaac Stadden, a pioneer settler in the 
Licking Valley, discovered it, and it is not certain, so far as is known, to 
the writer, that any of the white race had ever seen it before the above 
date." 

The foregoing are the principal works of the Mound Builders, of the 
Newark group, that remain. As already indicated, many of them that 
were in a good state of preservation very many years after Mr. Atwater 
had them surveyed, have been utterly destroyed by agencies heretofore 
mentioned; but as an additional and potent agency in their demolition, 
the process of building a town (West Newark) upon them, already num- 
bering its inhabitants by hundreds, has been going on of late years, and 
naturally enough, as far as its streets, alleys and lots extend, the ancient 
works have all been leveled by the plow, the scraper and the shovel. 

At and near the termination of some of the connecting parallel walls, 
or embankments, there were, originally, at many points watch-towers, or 
small mounds of observation, which have almost whollv disappeared, the 
plow having been run over most of them for half a century or more. 



238 



MOUND BUILDERS' WORKS 



When Mr. Atwater first surveyed, or rather had these works surveyed 
by Judge Holmes (who was a competent surveyor) more than sixty years 
ago — they being still in the wilderness — the aforesaid watch-towers, or 
small mounds of observation, were yet so plainly observable that he locat- 
ed them on his map or engraving of these ancient works. But they and 
many others are gone, entirely obliterated. Some disappeared when the 
Ohio canal was run through this group of ancient works, in 1827; others 
were destroyed thirty years ago, when the road bed of the Central Ohio 
Railroad was constructed, which runs tor a mile or more through this 
triangle of ancient earthworks; a number more were demolished within 
a few years, during the progress of the erection of extensive buildings for 
rolling-mill purposes; and others, many others, as well as low banks or 
parallel connecting walls or embankments, and small observatories, have 
disappeared under the long continued ravages of the plow. 

The author of the recently published "History of Licking County" 
remarks as follows upon some of these obliterated mounds: 

"A curious group of mounds that attracted the attention and wonder 
of the pioneers, were unfortunately destroyed by the building of the Cen- 
tral Ohio Railroad. They were not far from the Old Fort, and stood 
just at the foot of Cherry Valley, and a little east of the Ohio canal, 
where the above mentioned railroad crosses it. Three of these mounds 
stood in a line north and south; the fourth was a little east and between 
the two northern ones. They were all joined together at the base. In 
the destruction of this remarkable group of mounds, many interesting 
relics and facts were unearthed, that appear worth preservation. The 
mound farthest south was included in the embankment of the Central 
Ohio Railroad, and was first destroyed. The other three were greatly 
injured by the earth being taken to make the railroad embankment. The 
Northern mound was the largest, being about twenty feet high. This 
was finally leveled to form a cite for a rolling-mill. The upper eight 
feet of this mound was composed almost entirely of black loam, which 
appeared in layers. These layers, or strata, had seams where the earth, 
did not unite, although it appeared to be of the same character. Between 
these layers there were often marks of fire, and in one place, from four 
to six inches extending across the mound, there were strong marks of fire? 



NEAR NEWARK, OHIO. 



with charcoal and ashes. The different layers of earth did not often pass 
all over the mound — sometimes not over more than a fourth of it, and 
often overlapped eachother at the edges. It would seem that these lay- 
ers of earth were put on at considerable intervals of time, first on one side 
and then on the other, the different sides of the mound differing in struct- 
ure. In the upper eight feet of this mound no human or other bones 
were found. Several fine sheets of mica were taken out. A hole near 
the center was observed to continue down very near to the bottom of the 
mound. In some places this was filled with sand differing from the earth 
around it. In the lower eight feet of this mound quite a number of these 
perpendicular holes were observed. One on the east side was filled up 
with fine charcoal and ashes, and extended fully four feet below the sur- 
face of the earth. The whole base of this mound was of disturbed earth, 
four or more feet below the surrounding surface. Some six or eight of 
these post holes were discovered, but none but the center one continued 
for more than a few feet. They were mostly filled with a fine sand. 
About one-half of the lower portion of the mound was made of layers of 
blue clay; then there was a layer of sand, followed by one of cobble- 
stone, which appeared to be immediately over a strong burning. This 
layer of stone was about five feet from the base. In th middle mound 
the layer of cobble-stone was about eight feet from the base; was in the 
center of the mound sixteen inches thick, and extended all over it, thin- 
ning out towards the edges. The cobble-stone, in all places, seemed to 
be put on immediately over the burning, none of these stones having the 
marks of fire, except those coming in contact with the burnt earth. The 
heat of the fire must have been intense, for the small stones, in places,, 
were quite friable, and in places strongly marked with oxide of iron. 
This iron appearance led many to think that iron tools might have been 
placed there and rusted out. 

"In the fourth mound the cobble-stones were placed over burnings and 
on a level with the surrounding surface, and covered with creek sand. 
The blue clay in the northern mound must have been brought from a dis- 
tance, there being none near like it. 

"About three feet below the surrounding surface of the earth, and near 
the bottom of the large mound, the workmen, in digging the pit for the 



240 



MOUND BUILDERS' WORKS 



fly-wheel, found several pieces of bones and a part of the lower jaw 
•of a human being with one tooth yet in it. All the bones gave evidence of 
great age, and were in small pieces. 

"The cobble-stone layers in these mounds and the post holes are 
•uncommon features. Could the latter have been a frame work from 
which to suspend victims for sacrifice? 

"Surrounding this entire group of mounds was a cobble-stone wav 
about eight feet wide. This is yet plainly to be seen north of the rail- 
road, but the remainder has been destroyed. This oblong circle of stone 
.must have been one hundred yards in its northern and southern diameter, 
;and sixty-six yards east and west. Within sight of this group of mounds 
were originally about one dozen. Many of these have been destroyed. 
The digging of the pit for the fly-wheel revealed the lower portion of 
this mound better than examinations heretofore made, and showed that 
human beings had been buried at least four feet below the surronnding 
surface of the earth. 

"During the excavating process the place was visited by many citizens 
and gentlemen from a distance, and much interest taken. 

"The greater portion of these mounds being composed of sand and 
.loam may account for the paucity of bones found in it. The best preserved 
bones are found where the ground is mostly clay. 

"It was observed by the early settlers that the Indians buried their 
dead in and around these mounds; but these burials were thought to be 
easily distinguished from those of the Mound Builders. 

"In 1827, while digging the Ohio canal, a small mound was dug out 
where the second lock now stands. Many human bones were found sim- 
ilar to those in the group above mentioned. 

•"Several skeletons were found buried near these mounds, which were^ 
-no doubt, those of Indians, the bones denoting no great age, and having 
;copper instruments buried with them. Near one was found two copper 
quivers, for arrows, and a large shell, which had apparently been used as 
a drinking cup. Another small skeleton had by its side a quiver for 
arrows and a copper hatchet, with beads and other trinkets. These 
Indians and Mound Builders appeared to have two things in common; 
one is the copper implements, and the other the sheets of mica. This lat- 



NEAR NEWARK, OHIO. 



24 1 



ter is found in their mounds, and mixed with their crockery. The small 
Indian skeleton referred to above was partly covered with mica, some of 
it adhering: to the bones. Another skeleton was found covered with 
large sheets of mica; at least half a peck of mica, w r ith the bones, were 
brought to town. This, at the time was supposed to be the remains of 
an Indian. All the copper yet found in the mounds in this region has 
been native, unsmelted. 

"According to some antiquarians these mounds would be called sacri- 
fical or altar mounds, but the truth is, that most, if not all, in this vicinity, 
are of similar character, and might, with the same propriety be called 
sacrificial, for, as a general thing, a skeleton, or sometimes two or three, 
side by side, are found, covered with earth, then evidence of fire, and 
then another skeleton covered in the same way, and so on, but these 
skeletons and evidences of fii e do not extend regularly over the mound. 
Sometimes a skeleton and a burning will be found only on one side, and 
then again on the other, at a different elevation; but almost always in 
every mound is found one grand burning extending all over the mound,, 
as if there had been a grand ceremony for the benefit of all these buried 
beneath. In the large mound above mentioned there were two of these 
general burnings. Sometimes human bones were found with marks o£ 
,fire, indicating the probability of human sacrifice." 



THE IIOPETOWN (OHIO,) WORKS. 




MOUND BUILDERS' WORKS. 



^THE*PREHISTORIC*RACES.s> 

s= — "»o L£^-V »>*■■ — - 

Thoughts Suggested by a Yisit to the 
Haunts of the Mound Builders. 



SurdQtt's fetter to the Burlington flawksye. 

ESS than two miles from the Court House of Newark we 
reach the' county fair grounds, and in these, inclosing the race 
track, is the so-called "old fort," a circular earthwork, twenty 
feet high, over a mile in circumference, and nearly a true cir- 
cle, the diameter heing 1,150 and 1,2^0 feet. It belongs, they 
tell me, to the class of Mound Builders' work known as "en- 
closures," and the circle shuts in thirty acres of ground. On 
the east a gateway seventy-five feet wide forms the only break in the 
circle, and high parapets flank the entrance on either side. In the cen- 
ter of the circle is what is called "Eagle Mound," so named because it 
resembles an eagle with outspread wings. It is six feet in height, and 
measures 240 feet from tip to tip, and 210 feet from head to tail. When 
the apex ot this mound was removed a flat surface was discovered, with 
marks of fire, ashes and burnt wood upon the altar of stone. I believe 
the best archaeologists of the State think the "old fort" never was a fort, but 
was built for religious purposes. Here the Mound Builders said their 
prayers and carved their captive enemies on the effigy mound, the "ea- 
gle" altar in the center. Here the legislature in those days met; here 
gifted Solons went out into the cloak room to see the busy lobbyist and 





244 *I HE PREHISTORIC RACES. 

receive their cash before they voted on the bill. Here the fiat money 
lunatic of the older days urged the immediate issue of ^00,000.000,000 
bushels of basswood wampum, which should in all respects be considered 
as good as shell wampum and copper money. Here in the dusky twi- 
light of a bygone age, men who weren't fit to be poundmaster wanted to 
run for Congress, and did run and beat better men and got elected, and 
caught the soldier vote by introducing bills to give bounty land and 
money to all soldiers of the late war who had attained the age of 100 
years and upward. 

Two thousand years ago! To-day the circle is lonely; the sunshine of 
May is flooding the leafless landscape of January; forest trees crown the 
circle and the eagle mound. Centuries have passed away since their tiny 
germs put forth the first tender shoot that struggled through the clinging 
moss and cumbering leaves, and looked out upon the world and saw that 
it was good, and that it was made principally for the Ohio man. And 
these trees do not know the mystery of these mounds or the traditions of 
their builders. And if they do they won't tell. Here in this haunted 
spot other hearts have throbbed with love and ached with pain. Friends 
have walked and loved in these dusky solitudes; friendships have been 
broken and hearts estranged; the leaping fires of generous ambition have 
died away in sullen ashes; bright hopes" that glowed like sunlight in the 
morning have gone down in ray less night and pitiless storm. Here man- 
hood has bared its peerless breast to the shafts of the savage foe, and here 
lovely woman has stepped on a little green snake, not four inches long, 
and jumped clear over the mound with a howl that soured all the milk 
this side of the Hockhocking mounds. They lived, they planned, and 
schemed, they knew the sting of envy and the bitterness of hate; they 
worshipped here, and the arching aisles of the forest rang with their 
anthems as they sang without lining: 

"Pthresrexl is x lanxdrchtl pitchtocl, 

Brxtl, brxtl away; 
Whrxtzl antzchocti xr glchtrdzvcma 

Chtozl, chtozl as day." 

The throbbing hearts are still; the light is gone out of the beaming eyes; 
the hands that wrought are idly folded in 'eternal rest; the brains that 



THE PREIIISTORICAL RACES. 245 

planned are locked in slumber that no dreams disturb. The busy thous- 
ands, the generation succeeding generation that once thronged the soli- 
tudes where I stand alone to-day — here is their sepulcher; the air is. 
haunted with their dusky forms; the circle is a charnel house, the spirit 
of death is in the forest. 

The roll of a muffled drum echoing through the trees, and lo! a wood- 
pecker, gay in its coat of white and scarlet and black, glitters in the sun- 
light, a picture of joy and life and beauty. Think of death and misery in 
the world where that bright spirit touches the blasted tree with a flash of 
color and beauty before you. 

You think so, do you? That a little dash of color and beauty drives 
away the dark shadow of death and suffering? Well, does it then? The 
woodpecker is all right enough out in the sunlight, resplendent in his 
gorgeous livery, but just take the disposition of the unhappy worm the 
woodpecker is boring after. 

You look about you. This encircling mound; once it was alive with dus- 
ky forms that joined in national worship and participated in the grand coun- 
cils of State, and chose a new King when the old King had 'gone the 
way of the subject. And to-day? 

To-day that same encircling mound is just black with Christian men 
and women, three times a year, watching the "boss race," and betting 
their money on the equine stepper with the white foot. This mound is 
a boss place to see the races from. The amphitheater seats just go a beg- 
ging at the Licking County fairs. 

Well they are gone, these Mound Builders. And they didn't leave 
their present address, and didn't tell the Postmaster where to forward 
their mail. Thus passes the vanity of the world. Our troubles can last 
no longer than did theirs. From their history let us learn patience. 
What availeth it to worry? What are the little trials that beset your 
path? What are the tears that come unbidden to our eyes? What the 
disappointments that come like shadows of the cloud across our hearts? 
Only a little while, and the tranquil peace, the dreamless rest, the slum- 
ber undisturbed that crowned their lives at last will come to us, and with 
gentle hands will smooth the furrows from our brows, and take the 
sorrow from our hearts, and with the lotus balm of sweet — 

p 





IN A RECENT issue of the United Presbyterian was a letter from 
the Hon. John A. Bingham, United States Minister to Japan, 
expressing the opinion that the American Indians are descend- 
ents from the Japanese. The opinion is founded on the marked 
resemblance of the two races in manners, physique, customs, 
complexion, language, &c. It is not our purpose to attempt to 
refute the evidence in favor of that view, but only to state a few 
facts which have led us to believe that the American Indians 
are descended from the native Jews or Israelites. We refer to some 
inscriptions found on certain stones. These stones, at the time we wit- 
nessed them, on the 5th of April, 1866, were in possession of Rev. 
Matthew Miller, of Senecaville, Ohio. Rev. Miller was then a member 
of the O. S. Presbyterian Church. If he is still living, we presume he is 
now in the Re-united Presbyterian Church. He had been engaged, 
during a part of his time, in missionating among the Jews of this country. 
The first two of these stones, to which we refer, were found in what is 
called an Indian mound, three miles east of Newark, Ohio. The inscrip- 
tions of the first were: "Mav the Lord have mercy on me;" "It is good to 
love the aged." This stone was carved in the shape of a man's head. 

The writing on the second stone could not be read. It bore the image 
of four human faces. The third stone was found near Newark, in a sink 
which had been a grave. The first inscription on this stone was: "The 
dew of life is the Almighty on waking those who sleep." — Similar to an 



DISCOVERIES AT NEWARK. 



247 



expression found in Isaiah XXVI, 19. The other inscription on this 
stone was: "King of earth." The fourth stone was found in a mound 
not far from Newark. The mound was formed principally of stone, 
with several small mounds in the base formed of fire clay. Beneath one 
of these was a vault, and in the vault a coffin containing the skeleton of a 
human being; beneath the coffin was a metallic case, and the stone was 
found in this case. The stone was oblong, probably six inches or a little 
more in length, and about one inch in thickness, and an inch and a half 
or two inches in width; the stone was a very fine grain and carved 
very smoothly. On the face of this stone was the image of a man, with 
the name Moses written over the head of the image in Hebrew letters. 
Some of the commandments were written correctly and in full, while 
others were written incorrectly and not in full, as though they had been 
written from memory. The errors were in the spelling. 

The mound in which this last stone was found, being mostly of stone, 
was torn down, and the stone used, we believe, in building a canal and 
other public works. On the summit of one of these mounds was a tree, 
that must have been one hundred years in growing. One hundred 
growths were counted on the stump after the tree had been cut dow T n. 

All these stones, or relics were found in connection with the skeletons 
of Indian bodies. The skeleton of an Indian may be distinguished by the 
shape of the skull alone. But that which is especially worthy of notice 
is that these inscriptions were written in the Hebrew letters, or charac- 
ters, which were in use before the time of Ezra. Some change was 
made in the language, in this respect, by Ezra. Rev. Miller was noted 
as a Hebrew scholar, using the Hebrew language in his daily study of the 
Bible, as another would use the English Bible. He spent some time in 
comparing these inscriptions with ancient manuscripts of the language to 
which he had access. His mission among the Jews was also an advan- 
tage to him in this respect. We have stated these facts as we then 
received them from him, and we leave all who are concerned in the mat- 
ter to form their own opinion as to the ancestry of the American 
Indians. 

Our attention was recently called to an article in the UnitedPresbytcrian 
under the above title. The article seemed to be in answer to one written 



248 



DISCOVERIES AT NEWARK. 



■ by us, entitled "The Ancestory of the American Indians." The initials, 
used answer very well to the name of Bro. W. C. Somers. We confess 
that we had entirely overlooked the brother's article. He takes excep- 
tions to some evidence given by us in favor of the opinion that the 
American Indians are of Jewish origin, and offers in refutation an inscrip- 
tion found on the breast of an Indian skeleton near West Liberty, We c t 
Virginia. The inscription, as he tells us, was in English, and read as fol- 
lows: "Tremnedo, thou didst die for me and my wife, Jiro, and son Peto. 
1586. William Welch." 

This inscription is its own interpreter, and has no bearing whatever on 
the subject at issue. As it appears from the inscription itself, Tremnedo, 
the Indian, lost his life in protection of William Welch and family. 
William Welch writes this inscription, with some sharp pointed instru- 
ment, on a piece of mica slate, and lays it on the breast of the red man as 
a tribute of regard for him who had died to save himself and family. 
We find this noble characteristic in the breast of the red man; if you 
make him your friend, you have a friend who will lay down his own life, 
if need be, in your defense. 

William Welch, whose signature the inscription bears, was doubtless 
an Englishman, or one who used the English language, and he wrote the 
inscription in his own language. The inscription is dated 1587, and the 
brother informs us that this was "prior to any permanent settlement 
in the present limits of the United States." Henry VII, of England sent 
out an exploring party to this country, under Cabot, in the year 1497* 
just ninety }^ears before, and it is quite natural that they should explore 
the country to some extent before forming any permanent settlements. 
The brother tells us that he saw another inscription, an Indian relic, but 
he could not read it; it was "in an unknown language." The brother 
could read the inscription which was written in English; but we have 
heard even of United Presbyterian divines who had forgotten the Hebrew 

. alphabet. 

The brother informs us that the "Mound Builders were not the ances- 
tors of the Indians, but a race much higher in the scale of civilization 
and intelligence;" that "the strength and extent of their fortifications and 
their earth-works equaled those constructed by modern engineers." He 



DISCOVERIES AT NEWARK. 



241) 



also informs us that the Indians "Came from the North, and either 
exterminated that highly civilized nation who was so advanced in intel- 
ligence as to equal our modern engineers, or drove them Southward into 
Mexico, and Central, and South America. 11 

The Mound Builders, whoever they were, were a large and powerful 
nation, as appears from the ruins of their earth-works, tumuli, &c, extend- 
ing from the Eastern borders of the continent into the far West. Can 
it be that this powerful nation which was so advanced in intelligence and 
arts of war as to equal our present day, was exterminated or driven away 
from their homes by a little hord of savages armed with bows and tiny 
•arrows and tomahawks made of stone or flint? These were the weapons 
used by the Indians. If the brother's reasoning be true, should we not 
tremble for our homes and our liberties? We have nothing to fear from 
the most powerful armies of Europe; for they, too, like ourselves have 
made considerable advancement in modern engineering and arts of war. 
And we need not now have much fear of the Indians in the West and 
the North-West; for they too, in a measure have laid aside their bows 
and arrows, and have adopted, in part, our present mode of warfare. 
But then some tribe, armed with bows and arrows, might com^ from 
some Northern clime, or some hidden isle, and exterminate us, or take 
our scalps, and drive us bald-headed into Mexico. The brother's opinion 
in regard to this subject are hardly tenable. Will not his language 
addressed to us apply rather to himself? "We think a further examina- 
tion of facts will convince him that his conclusions are unwarrantable." 

The inscriptions to which we referred in our former article were 
written in Hebrew characters used before the time of Ezra. Ezra made 
some changes in the Hebrew characters. That prophet lived and wrote 
about 535 B. C. Hence we may infer that these inscriptions were writ- 
ten at least 2,400 years ago. Over the vault containing the Indian skele- 
ton, and the stone on which was written the Ten Commandments, as we 
stated, was a mound built principally of stone. This mound was about 
fifty feet in height. And here we find a Hebrew custom. When Rachel 
died "Jacob set a pillar up over her grave." When Achan was buried 
"They raised over him a heap of stones." "Absalom, in his lifetime had 
taken and reared for himself a pillar." When they buried Absolem, 



250 



DISCOVERIES AT NEWARK. 



"They laid a very great heap of stones upon him." The stone on which 
the Commandments were written appeared to have been carried a long 
time by a thong or leathern strap passed through a hole at one end of 
the stone, as the stone was considerably worn. This inscription was evi- 
dently written by the Hebrews, and it seems fair to infer that they were 
brought to this country by the Hebrews. 

v Rev. Ethan Smith, of Vermont, relates that, in 1815, a Mr. Marrick, a 
person of very respectable character, while levelling a mound near his 
residence on Indian Hill, discovered a strap about six inches in length 
and one and a half in breadth. At each end was a loop, probably for the 
purpose of carrying it. He found that it was composed of two pieces of 
thick raw-hide, sewed and made air tight with the sinews of some animal, 

1 in the fold was contained four pieces of parchment. One of the pieces 
was torn to shreds by some neighbors who came to see them. The other 
three were sent to Cambridge, and were found to have been written with 
a pen in Hebrew, plain and legible. The writing was quotations from 
the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, from the fourth to sixth verse inclu- 
sive; also the eleventh chapter and thirteenth to twenty-first verse inclu- 
sive, and Exodus thirteenth chapter, eleventh to sixteenth verse inclusive, 
to which the reader can refer. Calmet tells us that these are the very 
passages of Scripture that the Jews wrote on their phylacteries, and wore- 
upon their forehead and upon the, wrist of their left arm. Josiah Priest 
tells us that it is related by Dr. West that an old Indian informed him 
that his fathers had been in possession of a book which they carried with* 
them for a long time, but having lost the knowledge of reading it, they 
buried it with an Indian chief. 

Esdras tells us that some of the Ten Tribes went Northward after their 
captivity, to the land of Arsareth. This journey, as we learn from Esdras, 
took them a year and a half. Esdras says "That they would leave the 
multitude of the heathen and go forth into a country where never man- 
kind dwelt." Norway, Lapland and Sweeden may have been the very 
land called Arsareth, as we there find traces of the Israelites. 

But how did they get to America from Lapland? Buffon and other 
great naturalists suppose that Europe and America were at one time uni- 
ted. It is thus that they account for many animals being found in Amer- 



DISCOVERIES AT NEWARK. 



2~>\ 



ica. It is supposed that the two continents were disconnected by con- 
vulsions in nature, and that Greenland, Iceland and other islands are 
remains of the connection. Besides the Ten Tribes had a knowledge of 
navigation. But we will not ask for space in the paper to follow out 
minutely this part of the subject. 

The following was received from a friend that examined two blocks of 
stone found in Licking County, Ohio, in 1865: On one block was found 
the figure of a man's head nicely carved, and four of the Ten Command- 
ments inscribed in ancient Hebrew. And on the other block the remain- 
ing six commandments, in the same ancient language. This statement 
was confirmed by an eminent minister, who examined the same blocks of 
stone at the Philadelphia Centennial, in 1876. Being a perfect Hebrew 
scholar, he found the engravings perfect in that ancient language. Fur- 
thermore, we had a conversation with a Hebrew scholar that examined a 
fac -simile of these blocks of stone, published in one of the public journals 
at the time of their discovery. He states that if the publisher gave a true 
copy of the inscriptions, there could be no doubt of their genuineness, as f 
he could read it with as much ease as he could the same passage in his 
Hebrew Bible. 

The four blocks of stone in the possession of Rev. M. R. Miller, men- 
tioned in this volume, were found in Licking County, Ohio, more than 
fifty years ago, at the time of the opening of the canal through that 
place. 









am PERCEIVE a correspondent of July 22, 1875, refers to a piece of 
felr?t m * ca once m m y possession; and while he is very accurate in 
writing from memory of a matter long past, I think the little 
incident sufficiently singular to justify its true history- 

My attention was much given to archaeology for some years, 
and I frequently published the discoveries I made at Grave 
Creek and elsewhere. I will say here that I proved two very 
different written languages and people among the Mound Build- 
ers at Grave Creek, Va. 

These publications excited the interest of a Mr. McClure, who was 
born and had lived fifty years on a farm near West Liberty, on which his 
father had been one of the first settlers in 1776. He proceeded, with a 
laborer, to open a grave on his farm which had never been opened since 
his father settled there. He found the usual rows of boulders on each 
side of the body, three flat stones resting on them over the breast, and 
under them a piece of mica about four inches square and half an inch 
thick. The mica was larger, but this was the usual character of the 
graves Iliad opened in that vicinity, but upon this mica was written (and 
the correction is important) "Trems Nebo, thou who did die for me, my 



DISCOVERIES IN WEST VIRGINIA. 



253 



wifejero and my son Peto, 1 5S5. William Welsh." It was written evi- 
dently with a sharp steel point. The principle errors I corrected are 
in the first name and the date, which was two years earlier than he 
put it. 

I took the affidavits of the two men, and on showing it to the late 
Judge Conrad, then Mayor of Philadelphia, and President of the Hemp- 
field road, he was anxious I should show it to Dr. Meigs, then President 
of the State Historical Society, as I was going East. I was mystified as 
to how this writing came there and why it was written. Welsh was evi- 
dently English, his wife's and child's either Spanish or Italian names. 
The first English expedition under Sir Walter Raleigh's auspices, sailed 
late in 1584 and none of his party were known to come farther West than 
the Atlantic shore. There was no time, at any rate. During a week in 
Washington I made all possible inquiries of Indian linguists and could hear 
of no such names as Trems Nebo. When Dr. Meigs first looked at it he 
pronounced it bogus, because the writing was too good for that day; but 
after search in his massive tomes of manuscripts he found a clerkly hand 
precisely like it. Overjoyed at a new thing, he called a meeting of as 
many members as he could at the hall that night, to whom I gave my 
version, viz., that Welsh was in Spain, came over with De Soto or some 
later Spanish expedition, and with Trems Nebo, up from the South, and 
that had saved him from Indian vengeance at the sacrifice of his own life. 
I was confirmed in this opinion by finding in Lt. Herndon's trip down 
the Amazon, that he had a man named Trems Nebo, and gives the 
meaning — dew fall. I could hardly keep it to deposit in the Antiquarian 
^Society at Worcester, Mass. This was in 1854. 

I know of no place where mica is found in so large sheets as were used 
~by the Indians at Wheeling, except in New Jersey and Cennecticut. 




g § ^ i s b 1 9 5 s 1 1 1 if 1 1 1 a h i s s:g s 1 1 s i g 1 1 e i u^i iitb sum ii i i 1 1! i s sn i i n i n e i uri u lining 

INCIDENTS. 

ii ru i in ins i i<i-9 mil e.i'e mi! i.i i i.iii i m 1 1 ! i n i ! nini n n inn > MBiBiaiia run 





^^^^^^N INCIDENT that occurred lately with the writer, travel- 
ing in the West, gives us another proof of the identity 
of the North American Indian and the Hebiew 
race. On entering the cars at a large Western city, we 
G <pM> ^ saw a gentleman and lady in front of us, and a very 
sprightly little child in company. In a short time the child came into the- 
aisle and coming near to where we were, we spoke kindly to- 
it, and in so doing enlisted the child's attention; and after it left us we 
said to a gentleman sitting near: ''That child has the eye of an Indian.' 7 
"Hold," said the gentleman. "These persons are wealthy Jews." 
"Very well," said I, "this proves my theory that the North American 
Indians and the Jews are the same race of people, as William Penn 
expressed it two hundred years ago, that he thought of Berry St., Lon- 
don, England, where so many Hebrews lived, when he was with the 
Indian children of Pennsylvania." 

The following is from the Cincinnati Commercial of Aug. 3d, 1881: 
"About 187 1 — 2 the Ohio sank lower than had been known before, and 
at Smith's Ferry, where the Pennsylvania line crosses, a ledge of rock 
was laid bare that had not been seen or heard of by any people in that 



INCIDENTS. 



255 



vicinity. On these rocks for several hundred yards inscriptions had been 
made, such as arc ascribed to a race thai densely populated the country 
before the Indians." 

Now we differ widely from the writer so far as a different race inhab- 
iting the country before the Indians. We are strongly impressed with 
the idea that if those inscriptions were examined by a competent scholar., 
they might prove to be the- same Hebrew engraving found in Vermont. 
Lake George, New York, Newark, O., and Palenque, Central America. 
We hope that this may call the attention of some of the learned of the 
country, to investigate this matter and report. 

Many persons after reading the foregoing pages, will be ready to ask:. 
"How comes it that the North American Indians have gone down 
in civilization, if they are the descendants of such a noble race as the 
Ten Tribes?" 

Perhaps we can answer this question best by asking another. Why 
is it that the inhabitants of the country of Bashan have gone down in 
civilization, after having equal if not greater advantage than that of 
our North American. Indians? If history be true, this people, after the 
introduction of Christianity by Paul and others, nearly all became con- 
verted to the Christian faith, and remained so up to the fourth century; 
but where are they to-day? Nothing left of that mighty people that once 
wielded an influence not surpassed by any other people at that age of the 
world, and now only a few wandering robbers that live on wild fruits,, 
and what they can pillage from unguarded strangers. Yet the works of 
this ancient people remain, to tell of their former greatness and glory- 
There are no less than sixty cities, numbering from two to five hundred 
houses each, remaining as perfect as they were three thousand years ago.. 
Can we now wonder that our Aborigines, after their ancestors emigrat- 
ing here, many years before the Christian era, had time to rise to a 
high state of civilization, and degenerate by some cause unknown to us~ 

The writer lately saw an article in a paper written by the Rev. Mr.. 
Henderson, in which he declared that he liked to read Indians 
speeches because they were so expressive. 

Now the Hebrew, in a number of respects, is much like the Indian; not 
that the Indians are the lost tribes, or that there is any other special rela- 



256 



INCIDENTS. 



'tionship between the languages or people, (almost anybody ought to 
know better than that.) Now we thank our worthy friend for the first 
part of the quotation as it gives us another strong proof of the truth of 
our theory; but in answer to the latter part of his article we advise him to 
read this volume with care. Many persons when writing on an impor- 
tant question, fail to investigate; hence the many mistakes we find in the 
works of careless writers. When traveling not long since, we met a gen- 
tleman that had made a study of the Indian question, and had collected a 
large amount of curiosities of that kind; we asked him if there were 
any Hebrew inscriptions on any of them, and his answer was that there 
were a number of inscriptions of that kind. A reliable gentleman travel- 
ing in the Northwest a number of years ago, stated to the writer that 
when conversing with a highly educated gentleman there regarding the 
Indians and their language, he was told by this same educated man that 
there was quite a large mixture of Hebrew found in the language of the 
far Northwestern tribes. 

The writer, after long and earnest investigation of this subject, feels as 
fully convinced of the truth of this theory, as of any other fact in his- 
"tory. 




.mm- 






hThY^^ following is taken fron Guernsey's History of the United 
f^'i'Mt' States ' Polished in 1S57 : 

Jy&jjjgg5 "In 1821, on the bank of the river Desperes, in Missouri. 
9 ^^S^y was found by an Indian, a Roman coin which was pre- 
T^i)>i sented to Gov. Clark. A Persian coin was also discovered 



near a spring in Ohio, some feet under ground. Lexington, Ky., stands 
nearly on the site of an ancient town of great extent and magnificence 
which is amply evinced by the wide range of its works, covering a great 
quantity of ground. There is connected with the antiquities of this place 
a catacomb found in the bowels of the limestone rock about fifteen feet 
below the surface of the earth. This was discovered in 1775 by some of 
the first settlers whose curiosity was excited by the singular appearance- 
of the stones that covered the entrance of the cavern. They removed 
the stones, when was laid open to their view the mouth of a cave, deep r 
gloomy and terrific as they supposed. Providing themselves with lights 
and companions, they descended and entered without obstruction a spa- 
cious apartment. The sides and extreme ends were formed into notches, 
and compartments ocupied by figures representing men. When their 
alarm had sufficiently subsided to permit them ta persue their investiga- 



•258 



RELICS FOUND. 



"lions, they found the figures to be mummies preserved by the art of em- 
balming, in as great a state of perfection as any that have been dug out 
of the tombs in Egypt where they have remained more than three 
thousand years. Unfortunately for antiquity and science, this inestimable 
discovery was made by an ignorant class of people, at a time when a 
"bloody and inveterate war was carried on between the Indians and 
the whites. The whites indignant at many outrages committed by the 
Indians, wreaked their vengeance upon everything connected with them. 
Supposing this to be a burying place for their dead, they dragged them 
out to the open air, tore open their bandages, kicked their bodies into 
dust and made a general bonfire of the most ancient remains antiquity 
could boast of. 

The descent to this cavern is gradual; the width four feet, the height 
seven and the whole length of the catacomb was found to be eighteen 
•and a half rods, and the width six and a half, and calculated from the 
niches, and shelving on the sides, it was capable of contain- 
ing at least two thousand subjects. Here they had lain prepared for 
thousands of years, embalmed and placed there by the same race of men 
with those who built the Pyramids of Egypt, and who excavated the 
tombs on the Rocky Mountain side, 604 B. C. 

We find the Egyptians under the direction of Necho, their king, 
fitting out some Phenecians with a fleet, with directions to sail from the 
JR.ed Sea quite around the continent of Africa and to return by the Med- 
iteranean, which they affected, thus performing a voyage of more than 
.16.000 miles. — Guernsey's History of the United States, pages 27 — 30. 

Now the account we have of the emigration of the Ten Tribes of Is- 
rael from beyond the Caspian sea to a land not inhabited by man, took 
place 650 years B. C, and it is evident from what we read in II. Esdras, 
XIII, 41, that it would require a year and a half to accomplish the journey, 
and from the marks they have left in the shape of Hebrew letters found 
engraved on the rocks and even on the parchment found in Vermon^ 
and all through the West, down to Central America, at least a portion of 
these tribes were here before the Phenecians. 

But Guernsey goes on to describe more wonderful ruins. "At Paint 
Creek, in Ohio, are works of art more wonderful than any yet discovered. 



KKLICS FOUND. 



They arc six in number, and are in the immediate neighborhood of each 
other. In one of these grand enclosures is contained three Torts. One 
embraces 17, another 27 and a third 77. amounting' in all to 121 acres 
of land. There are 14 gateways leading- out of the works from one to 
six rods in width. At the outside of each of these gateways is an 
ancient well, from tour to six rods in width at the top. Within the large 
enclosure is an eliptical elevation 25 feet in height, 100 feet in circum- 
ference, and filled with human bones. The elevation is perfectly smooth 
and level on the top and it may have been a place where the priests of 
their religion sacrificed human beings before the vast throng which con- 
gregated around the mound to witness the bloody rites." 

In Onondago county. New York, is an ancieut burying ground. In one 
of the graves was found a glass bottle and an iron hatchet, edged with 
steel. The eye, or helve was round and projected like the ancient Ger- 
man axe. In the same town were found the remains of a blacksmith's 
forge and crucibles; such as meneralogists use in refining metal. In 
• Cipio, Mr. Halstead has from time to time plowed up on his farm, sev- 
en or eight hundred pounds of brass, which appeared to have been 
formed into various implements of husbandry and ware. 

Mr. Halstead found also sufficient wrought iron to shoe his horses 
for a number of years. 

On the Black river in the State of N. Y., a man digging a well found 
a quantity of China and delf ware at the depth of several feet. In Tomp- 
kins county, Mr. Lee discovered on his farm the entire iron of a wa«-on 
reduced to rust. On the flats of the Genessee river, on the land of Mr. 
Liberty Judd, was found a bit of silver about the length of a man's finger, 
hammered to a point at one end, while the other was smooth and 
square, on which was engraved in Arabic figures: "The year of our Lord 
600." On the Susquehannah river a piece of pottery was found twelve feet 
across the top, making a circumference of thirty-six feet, and of propor- 
tionate depth and form. 

The remains of a monster was discovered in Louisiana seventeen feet 
under ground, the largest bone of which weighed twelve hundred 
pounds, was 20 feet long and was thought to be the shoulder blade or 
jaw bone. This immense animal is supposed to have been 125 feet long. 





sHIS magnificent and very ancient structure is situated near 
the Little Miami Railroad, five miles North of Morrow- 
town, Warren county, Ohio. Having read descriptions of 
the place in two different histories, and after carefully 
examining the grounds, on a recent visit, we found their 
descriptions of the Fort and its surroundings to be 
wrong in several particulars. We shall endeavor to give 
as accurate a statement of facts in relation to the extent, height of the em- 
bankment, and other works connected with the Fort, so far as we could 
gather from observation and from the citizens on and around the prem- 
ises. 

We found by conversing with a number of individuals, that inside 
of the embankment, the land amounted to about no acres, being 
divided into two parts, the larger containing 70 acres and the smaller 40. 
The Fort is bounded on the west by the bluff above the little Miami val- 
ley; the remainder by deep ravines except about thirty rods on the east, 
that is quite a level surface. The ground for constructing the bank was 
taken from the inside, except the portion on the level land, and that was 
taken from both sides. The height of the earth work is about from five 



FORT ANCIENT. 



261 



to twenty feet high; the timber growing on the bank is as large as any in 
the surrounding forest. The elevation of the ground is estimated to be 
180 feet above the level of the Little Miami river. Here was found one 
of the ancient wells, pottery and skeletons of the human race of immense 
size. One gentleman told me he had assisted in unearthing the bones 
of a person measuring eight feet in height; another person residing on 
the premises stated that he had found the skull of a person large enough 
to cover his own face, though he is a man of more than ordinary size. 
He also stated that the teeth were so large that he would not make any 
statement concerning their size lest I should not believe him. We then 
asked him if he had any of the teeth in his possession. "No," said he, 
"fool like, I threw them away on being told that my own teeth would rot 
if I retained them in my dwelling." 

But the most interesting account regarding human remains I learned 
from Dr. Frazee, an old physician that practiced medicine for a number 
of years near the fort. This gentleman informed me that he made a dis- 
covery of a human skeleton buried in the valley in a standing posture, 
the head being three or four feet below the surface of the ground. The dis- 
covery was made by the washing out of a deep ravine near the Miami 
river. When the Dr. discovered the bones protruding from the bank, he 
removed them carefully, and after placing the bones in their proper 
places, he found the skeleton measured eight feet. 

But the greatest curiosity that attracted my attention were the two 
mounds located a few rods east of the fort. They probably are ten feet 
high, and 30 or 40 feet w T ide at 'the base. These mounds have each of 
them what appears to have been a foot- way laid with limestone flags, in 
a north-east direction, covering a space of several rods in length. These 
flags are now covered by a soil of ten inches in depth. In^digging in 
the ground several rods distant, they found the same depth of soil cover- 
ing the flags that were laid in a direct line from both mounds. Here is 
one thing for the antiquarian to contemplate; how long has it been since 
these flags were laid? What race of men have trod these paths and are 
now sleeping the sleep that knows no waking? The ground connected 
with these mounds is a level surface; no chance for soil to wash upon it; 
consequently the covering of the flagstone must have been from the 

Q 



262 



FORT ANCIENT. 



leaves and dust that was annually cast upon the ground. We have good 
reason to believe that it required more than two thousand vears to form 
such an amount of soil. We must believe that those persons that built such 
immense structures must have been a highly civilized and enlight- 
ened agricultural people, as they could not have depended on the preca- 
rious mode of living now practiced by the North American Indians. 






E ARE daily finding more evidence that the Mound Build- 
ers were the ancestors of the North American Indians, 
and that the entire race were descendants of the Ten 
Tribes. The art of embalming practiced by the early 
inhabitants of Kentucky, mentioned in another part of 
this work, where the mummies were found embalmed in 
the same manner as that of the ancient Egyptians. Now 
what race of people would be so likely to practice the art of embalming 
as the Hebrews; for both Jacob and Joseph were embalmed in Egypt. 

Then we are told that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians, and it is certainly a fair inference for us to draw, that Moses 
and many others were well acquainted with the art of embalming. 
Hence how easy it would be for Hebrew people to bring this discovery 
to this country and practice it when they came here. 

The silver article found in the State of New York, mentioned in 
another part of this volume, dated A. D. 600, in Arabic characters gives 
another strong evidence that this same work was done by Hebrews, as 
they were no doubt acquainted with the Arabic system of numerals. 
Mr. E. G. Barney, lately traveling in Columbia, South America, gives 



264 HISTORY. 

his views in the American Antiquarian, vol. 4, No. 3, page 171, regard- 
ing the identity of the people of Columbia and the Indians of the North. 
He says: "These people, so far as I can decide after very careful research 
and observation, were of the same race as the North American Indians — 
such as Cherokees, Creeks, etc., having similar manners and customs. " 
The learned Prof. Winchel, of Minnesota, in the September number of 
the Popular Science Monthly for 1881, in speaking of the Ancient Cop- 
per Mines of Isle Royal, believes in the identity of the Mound Builders 
with the American Indians. 

Dr. Daniel G. Brinton when speaking of the origin of the Indians, says * 
their traditions point to the West, or Northwest as the place from whence 
they came, plainly agreeing with our theory that the Ten Tribes crossed 
at Behring Strait, and from that emigrated into all parts of the conti- 
nent. 




ThetProbableiationality 




tHE question, "Who were the Mond Builders?" is one that 
still remains open in American archaeology. Among the 
most recent expressions of opinion I may quote Prof. 
John T. Short, who thinks that one or two thousand years 
may have elapsed since they deserted the Ohio valley, and 
probably eight hundred since they finally retired from the Gulf Coast.* 
Mr. J. P. McLean continues to believe them to have been somehow 
related to the "Toltocs."f Dr. J. W. Foster, making a tremendous leap, 
connects them with a tribe "who in times far remote, flourished in Brazil," 
and adds: "A broad chasm is to be spanned before we can link the 
Mound Builders to the North American Indians. They were essentially 
different in their form of government, their habits and their daily pur- 
suits. The latter were never known to erect structures which should sur- 
vive the lapse of a generation. "J 

On the other hand, we have the recent utterance of so able an ethnolo- 
gist as Major J. W. Powell to the effect that, "With regard to the 
mounds so widely scattered between the two oceans, it may be said that 



* The North Americans of Antiquity, p. 106, (1880.) 
t The Mound Builders, chap. xii. (Cin. 1879.) 

}Pie-Historic Races of the United States of America, pp. 388, 347, (Chicago, 1873.) 



266 



PROBABLE NATIONALITY. 



mound building tribes were known in the early history of discovery or 
this continent and that the vestiges of art discovered do not excel in any 
respect the arts of the Indian tribes known to history. There is, there- 
fore, no reason for us to search for an extra limital origin through lost 
tribes for the arts discovered in the mounds of North America."* 

Between opinions so discrepant the student in archagology may well be 
at a loss, and it will therefore be worth while to inquire just how far the 
tribes who inhabited the Mississippi valley and the Atlantic slope at the 
time of the discovery were accustomed to heap up mounds, excavate 
trenches, or in other ways leave upon the soil permanent marks of their 
occupancy. 

Beginning with the warlike northern invaders, the Iroquois, it clearly 
appears that they were accustomed to construct burial mounds. Colden 
states that the corpse is placed in a large round hole and that "they then 
raise the Earth in a round Hill over it."f Further particulars are given 
by Lafitau : the grave was lined with bark, and the body roofed in with 
bark and branches in the shape of an arch, which was then covered with 
earth and stones so as to form an agger or tumulus \ In these instances 
the mound was erected over a single corpse ; but it was also the custom 
among the Hurons and Iroquois, as we are informed by Charlevoix, to 
collect the bones of their dead every ten years, and inter them in one mass 
together. § The slain in a battle were also collected into one place and 
a large mound heaped over them, as is stated by Mr. Paul Kane,|| and 
that such was an ancient custom of the Iroquois tribes is further shown 
by a tradition handed down from the last century, according to which the 
Iroquois believed that the Ohio mounds were the memorials of a war 
which in ancient times they waged with the Cherokees.^f Mr. E. G. 
Squier, who carefully examined many of the earthworks in the country 
of the ancient Iroqu&is, was inclined at first to suppose the remains he 
found there to be parts of "a system of defense extending from the source 

* Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C, p. 116, (1881.) 
t History of the Five Nations, Introduction, p. 16, (London, 1750.) 

X Meurs des Sauvages Americains compares aux Meurs du Premiers Tomps, chap. xiii. 
\ Journal Historique, p. 377. 

| Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America, p. 3, (London, 1859.) 
1 H. R. Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, p. 169, 163, compare pp. 66, 67, 



PROBABLE N \TIONALITY. 



267 



of the Alleghany and Susquehanna in New York, diagonally across the 
country through central and northern Ohio to the Wabash," and hence 
drew the inference that the pressure of hostilities[upon the Mound Build- 
ers] was from the north-east."* This opinion has been repeated by some 
recent writers ; but Mr. Squier himself substantially retracted it in a 
later wofk, and reached the conviction that whatever ancient remains 
there are in Western New York and Pennsylvania are to be attriubuted 
to the later Indian tribes and not to the Mound Builders. f 

The neighbors of the Iroquois, the various Algonkin tribes, were occa- 
sionally constructors of mounds. In comparatively recent times we have 
a description of a "victory mound" raised by the Chippeways after a suc- 
cessful encounter with the Sioux. The women and children threw up 
the adjacent surface soil into a heap about five feet high and eight or ten 
feet in diameter, upon which a pole was erected, and to it tufts of grass 
were hung, one for each scalp taken. J 

Robert Beverly, in his History of Virginia, first published in 1705, 
describes some curious constructions by the tribes there located. He 
tells us that they erected "pyramids and columns" of stone, which they 
painted and decorated with wampum, and paid them a sort of worship. 
They also constructed stone alters on which to offer sacrifices. § 
This adoration of stones and masses of rocks — or rather of the genius 
which was supposed to reside in them — prevailed also in Massachusetts 
and other Algonkin localities, and easily led to erecting such piles. || 

Another occasion for mound building among the Virginian Indians 
was to celebrate or to make a memorial of a solemn treaty. On such an 
occasion they performed the time honored ceremony of "burying the 
hatchet," a tomahawk being literally put in the ground, "and they raise a 
pile of stones over it, as the Jews did over the body of Absalom."^" 

I am not aware of any evidence that the Cherokees were Mound 
Builders: but they appreciated the conveniences of such structures, and 

* Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 44 
t Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York, p. 11. 
I Mr. S. Taylor, American Journal of Science, vol. xliv, p. 22. 
I History of Virginia, book ii. chap. iii. chap. viii. 

I See a well prepared article on the subject by Prof. Finch, in the American Journal of Science, vol. vii, 
p. L53. 

1 Uistory of Virginia, book iii, chap. vii. 



268 



PROBABLE NATIONALITY. 



in one of their villages William Bartram found their council house situ- 
ated on a large mound. He adds : "But it may be proper to observe 
that this mount on which the rotunda stands is of a much ancienter date 
than the building, and perhaps was raised for another purpose."* Lieu- 
tenant Timberlake is about our best early authority on the Cherokees, and 
I believe he nowhere mentions that they built upon mounds of artificial 
construction. Adair, however, states that they were accustomed to heap 
up and add to piles of loose stones in memory of a departed chief, or as 
monuments of an important event. f 

The tribes who inhabited what we call the Gulf States, embracing the 
region between the eastern border of Texas and the Atlantic Ocean south 
of the Savannah River, belonged with few and small exceptions, to the 
great Chahta-Muskokee family, embracing the tribes known as the 
Choctaws, Chicasaws, Muskokees or Creeks, Seminoles, Allibamons, 
Natchez and others. The languages of all these have numerous and un- 
mistakable affinities, the Choctaw or Chata presenting probably the most 
archaic form. It is among them, if anywhere within our limits, that we 
must look for the descendants of the mysterious "mound builders." No 
other tribes can approach them in claims for this distinction. Their own 
traditions, it is true, do not point to a migration from the north, but from 
the west; nor do they contain any reference to the construction of the 
great works in question; but these people do seem to have been a build- 
ing race, and to have reared tumuli not contemptible in comparison even 
with the mightiest of the Ohio valley. 

The first explorer who has left us an account of his journey in this 
region was Cabeza de Vaca who accompanied the expedition to Pamfilo 
de Narvaez in 1527. He, however, kept close to the coast, for fear of 
losing his way and saw for the most part only the inferior fishing tribes. 
These he describes as in generally a miserable condition. Their huts 
were of mats erected on piles of oyster shells (the shell heaps now so 
frequent along the Southern coast.) Yet he mentions that in one part, 
which I judge to be somewhere in Louisiana, the natives were accustom- 



* Travels, p. 367, (Dublin, 1793.) 

t History of the North American Indians, p. 



P ROM ABLE NATIONALITY. £(><> 

ed to erect their dwellings on a steep hill and around its base to dig a 
ditch, as a means of defence.* 

Our next authorities are very important. They are the narrators of 
Captain Hernando de Soto's famous and ill starred expedition. Of this 
we have the brief account of Biedmas, the longer story of "the gentleman 
of Elvas," a Portuguese soldier of fortune, intelligent and clearheaded, and 
the poetical and brilliant composition of Garcilasso de la Vega. In all of 
these we find the Southern tribes described as constructing artificial 
mounds, using earthworks for defense, excavating ditches and canals, etc. 
I quote the following passage in illustration: 

' l The town and the house of the Cacique Ossachile are like those of 
the other Caciques in Florida. * * * The Indians try to place their 
villages on elevated sites; but inasmuch as in Forida there are not many 
sites of this kind where they can conveniently build, they erect elevations 
themselves in the following manner: They select the spot and carry 
there a quantity of earth which they form into a kind of platform two or 
three pikes in height, the summit of which is large enough to give room 
for twelve, fifteen or twenty houses, to lodge the cacique and his attend- 
ants. At the foot of th'is elevation they mark out a square place accord- 
ing to the size of the village, around which the leading men have their 
houses. * * * To ascend the elevation they have a straight passage 
way from bottom to top, fifteen or twenty feet wide. Here steps are 
made by massive beams, and others are planted' firmly in the ground to 
serve as walls. On all other sides of the platform, the sides are cut 
steep, "f 

Later on La Vega describes the village of Capaha: 

"This village is situated on a small hill, and it has about five hundred 
good houses, surrounded by a ditch ten or twelve cubits (brazas) deep, 
and a width of fifty paces in most places, in others forty. The ditch is 
filled with water from a canal which has been cut from the town to Chi- 
cagua. The canal is three leagues in length, at least a pike in depth, and 
so wide that two large boats could easily ascend or descend it side by 



* Relatione que fece Alvaro Nurez, detto Capo di Vacca, Ramugio, Viaggi, Tom. iii, fol. 317, 323, (Ven- 
ice, 1556 ) 

t La Vega, Historia de Florida, Lib. ii, cap. xxii. 



270 PROBABLE NATIONALITY. 

side. The ditch which is filled with water from this canal surrounds 
the town except in one spot which is closed by heavy beams planted in 
the earth."* 

Biedma remarks in one passage speaking of the provinces of Ycasqui 
and Pacaha: "The caciques of this region were accustomeol to erect near 
the house where they lived very high mounds (tertres tress-elevees) and 
there were some who placed their houses on the top of these mounds. "j- 

I caunot state precisely where these provinces and towns were situated; 
the successful tracing of De Soto's journey has never yet been accom- 
plished, but remains as an interesting problem for future antiquaries to 
solve. One thing I think is certain; that until he crossed the Mississippi 
he at no time was outside the limits of the wide spread Chahta- 
Muskokee tribes. The p/oper name preserved, and the courses and dis- 
tance given both confirm this opinion. We find them therefore in his 
time accustomed to erect lofty mounds, terraces and piatforms, and to 
protect their villages by extensive circumvallations. I shall proceed to 
inquire whether such statements are supported by late writers. 

Our next authorities in point of time are the French Huguenots, who 
undertook to make a settlement on the St. John river near where Saint 
Augustine now stands in Florida. The short and sad history of this col- 
ony is familiar to all. The colonists have, however, left us some interest- 
ing descriptions of the aborigines. In the neighborhood of St. Augustine 
these belonged to the Timuquana tribe, specimens of whose language 
have been preserved to us, but which, according to the careful analysis 
recently published by Mr. A. S. Gatschet,J has no relationship with the 
Chahta-Muskokee, nor, for that matter, with any other known tongue. 
Throughout the rest of the peninsula a Muskokee dialect probably pre- 
vailed. 

The "Portuguese gentleman" tells us that at the very spot where De 
Soto landed, generally supposed to be somewhere about Tampa Bay, at a 
town called Ucita, the house of the chie/ "stood near the shore upon a 

* Ibid, Lib. vi. cap. vi. See for other examples from this work ; Lib. ii, cap. xxx, Lib. iv, cap. xi, Lib,_ 
v, cap. iii, etc. 

t Belation de ce qui arriva pendantle Voyage du Captaine Soto, p. 88 (Ed. Ternaux Compans.) 
X Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1879-1S80. 

i 



PROBABLE NATIONALITY. 



271 



vcrv high mound made by hand for strength." Such mounds are also 
spoken of by the Huguenot explorers. They served as the site of the 
chieftain's house in the villages, and from them led a broad, smooth road 
through the village to the water.* These descriptions correspond closely 
to those of the remains which the botanists, John and William Bartram, 
discovered and reported about a century ago. 

It would also appear that the natives of the peninsula erected mounds 
over their dead, as memorials. Thus the artist Le Moyne de Morgues, 
writes: "Defuncto aliquo rege ejus provincise, magna solennitate sepelitur, 
et ejus tumulo crater, e quo bibere solebat, imponitur, defixis circum ipsum 
tumulum multis sagittis."f The picture he gives of the "'tumulus" does 
not represent it as more than three or four feet in height, so that if this 
was intended as an accurate representation, the structure scarcely rises to 
the dignity of a mound. 

After the destruction of the Huguenot colony in 1565, the Spanish 
priests at once went to work to plant their missions. The Jesuit fathers 
established themselves at various points south of the Savannah River, but 
their narratives, which have been preserved in full in a historic work of 
great rarity, describe the natives as broken up into small clans, waging 
constant wars, leading vagrant lives, and without fixed habitations.]; Of 
these same tribes, however, Richard Blomes, an English traveler, who 
visited them about a century later, says that they erected piles or pyra- 
mids of stones, on the occasion of a successful conflict, or when they 
founded a new village, for the purpose of keeping the fact in long remem- 
brance. § About the same time another Englsh traveler, by name Bris- 
tock, claimed to have visited the interior of the country and to have 
found in "Apalacha" a half-civilized nation, who constructed stone walls 
and had a developed sun worship; but in a discussion of the authenticity 
of his alleged narrative I have elsewhere shown that it cannot be relied 
upon, and is largely a fabrication.! A correct estimate of the construc- 

* Histoire Notable de la Floride, pp. 138, 164, etc. 

tBrevis Narrator, in Peregrinationes in Aericam, Pars, ii, Tab. xl, (1595.) 

X Alcazar, Chrono-Historia de la Compania de Jesus en la Provincia de Toledo, Tom. ii, Dec. "iii, cap. vi. 
(Madrid, 1710.) 

$ The Present State of His Majesty's Isles and Territories in America, p. 156, (London, 1667.) 
| The Floridian Peninsula, p, 95, sqq, (Phila., 1859.) 



"272 



PROBABLE NATIONALITY. 



tive powers of the Creeks is given by the botanist, William Bartram, who 
visited them twice in the latter half of the last century. He found they 
had "chunk yards' 1 surrounded by low walls of earth, at one end of which, 
sometimes on a moderate artificial elevation, was the chief's dwelling and 
at the other end the public council house.* His descriptions resemble 
-so closely those in La Vega that evidently the latter was describing the 
same objects on a larger scale — or from magnified reports. 

Within the present century the Seminoles of Florida are said to have 
retained the custom of collecting the slain after a battte and interring 
them in one large mound. The writer on whose authority I state this, 
adds that he "observed on the road from St. Augustine to Tomaka, one 
mound which must have covered two acres of ground, "f but this must 
surely have been a communal burial ground. 

Passing to the tribes nearer the Mississippi, most of them of Choctaw 
affiliation, we find considerable testimony in the French writers to their 
use of mounds. Thus M. de la Harpe says: "The cabins of the Yasous, 
Courois, OfTogoula and Ouspie are dispersed over the country on mounds 
of earth made with their own hands. "J The Natchez were mostly of 
Chowtaw lineage. In one of their villages Dumont notes that the cabin 
of the chief was elevated on a mound. § Father Le Petit, a missionary 
who labored among them, gives the particulars that the residence of the 
great chief or "brother of the Sun." as he was called, was erected on a 
mound (butte) of earth carried for that purpose. When the chief died, 
the house was destroyed, and the same mound was not used as the site of 
the mansion of his successor, but was left vacant and a new one was 
constructed.! This interesting fact goes to explain the great number of 
mounds in some localities; and it also teaches us the important truth that 
we cannot form any correct estimate of the date when a mound building 
tribe left a locality by counting the rings in trees, etc., because long 
before they departed, certain tumuli or earthworks may have been 

* Bartram MSS, in the Library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

t Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, by his guardian, pp. 71-2, (London, 1841.) 
J Annals, in Louisiana Hist. Colls,, p. 196. 
§ Memoires Historiques de la Louisiane, Tom ii, p. 109. 
Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Tome ii, p. 261. 



PROBABLE NATIONALITY. 



WW 



deserted and tabooed from superstitious notions, just as many were among 
the Natchez. 

We have the size of the Natchez mounds given approximately by M. 
Le Page du Pratz. He observes that the one on which was the house of 
the Great Sun was "about eight feet high and twenty feet over on the 
surface.* He adds that their temple, in which the perpetual fire was kept 
burning, was on a mound about the same height. 

The custom of communal burial has already been adverted to. At the 
time of the discovery it appears to have prevailed in most of the tribes 
from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. The bones of each phratry or gens — 
the former, probably — were collected every eight or ten years and con- 
veyed to the spot where they were to be finally interred. A mound was 
raised over them which gradually increased in size with each additional 
interment. The particulars of this method of buiial have often been 
described and it is enough that I refer to a few authorities in the note.f 
Indeed it has not been pretended that such mounds necessarily date back 
to a race anterior to that which occupied the soil at the advent of the 
white man. 

I have not included in the above survey the important Dakota stock 
who once occupied an extended territory on the upper Mississippi and 
its affluents, and scattered clans of whom were resident on the Atlantic 
coast in Virginia and Carolina. But, in fact, I have nowhere found that 
they erected earthworks of any pretensions whatever. 

From what I have collected, therefore, it would appear that the only 
resident Indians at the time of the discovery who showed any evidence 
of mound building comparable to that found in the Ohio valley were the 
Chahta-Muskokees. I believe that the evidence is sufficient to justify us 
in accepting this race as the constructors of all those extensive mounds, 
terraces, platforms, artificial lakes and circumvallations which are scat- 
tered over the Gulf States, Georgia and Florida. The earliest explorers 

* History of Louisiana, vol. ii, p. 188, (Eng. Trans. London, 1763.) 

t Adair, History of the North American Indians, pp. 184, 185:— William Bartram. 

Travels, p. 561: Dumont Memoires Historiques de la Louisiane, Tome i, pp. 246, 264. et al.: Bernard, 
Komans, Natural and Civil History of Florida, pp. 88-89, (a good account.) 
The Relations des Jesuits describe the custom among tlie Northern Indians. 



274 PROBABLE NATIONALITY. 

distictly state that such were used and constructed by these nations in the 
sixteenth century, and probably had been for many generations. Such 
too, is the opinion arrived at by Col. C. C.Jones, than whom no one is 
more competent to speak with authority on this point. Referring to the 
earthworks he found in Georgia he writes: "We do not concur in the 
opinion so often expressed, that the mound builders were as a race dis- 
tinct from and superior in art, government and religion, to the Southern 
Indians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." 

It is a Baconian rule which holds good in every department of science 
that the simplest explanation of a given fact or series of facts should 
always be accepted; therefore if we can point out' a well known race of 
Indians who, at the time of the discovery, raised mounds and other 
earthworks, not wholly dissimilar in character and not much inferior in 
size to those in the Ohio valley, and who resided not far away from that 
region and directly in the line which the Mound Builders are believed by 
all to have followed in their emigration, then this rule constrains us to 
-accept for the present this race as the most probable descendants of the 
Mound Tribes, and seek no further for Toltecs, Asiatics or Brazilians. 
All these conditions are filled by the Chahta tribes.* 

It is true, as I have already said, that the traditions of their own origin 
do not point to the north but rather to the west or north-west; but in one 
of these traditions it is noticeable that they claim their origin to have been 
from a large artificial mound, the celebrated Nanih Waiya, the Sloping 
Hill, an immense pile in the valley of the Big Black River; f and it may 
foe thit this village reminiscence of their remote migration frorn their ma- 
jestic works in the north. 

The size of the southern mounds is often worthy of the descendents of 
those who raised the vast piles in the northern valleys. Thus, one in the 
Etowah Valley, Georgia, has a cubical capacity of 1,000,000 cubic feet. \ 
The Messier Mound near the Chatahoochee River, contains about 700,- 

* Antiquities of the Southern Indians, particularly the Georgian Tribes, p. 135, (New York, 1873.) 

|For particulax-s of this see my Myths of the New World, pp. 241-2, (New York, 1876.) 

% C. C. Jones, Monumental Remains of Georgia, p. 32. 

3 Ibid. Antiquities of the Southern Indians, p. 169. 

| Squier & Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississiqqi Valley, p. 29. 

'3 Origin of the Big Mound of St. Louis, a paper read before the St. Louis Academy of Science. 



PROBABLE NATIONALITY 



215 



000 cubic feet. § Wholly artificial mounds 50 to 70 feet are by no means 
unusual in the river valley of the Gulf States. 

With these figures we may compare the dimensions of the northern 
mounds. The massive one near Miamisburg, Ohio, 68 feet high, has 
been calculated to contain 311,350 cubic feet — about half the size of the 
Messier Mound. At Clark'sWorks, Ohio, the embankments and mounds 
together contain about 3,000,000 cubic feet; || but as the embankment is 
three miles long, most of this is not in the mounds themselves. Greater 
than any of these is the truncated pyramid at Cahokia, Illinois, which has 
an altitude of 90 feet and a base area of 7 00 x 5°° feet. It is, however, 
doubtful whether this is wholly an artificial construction. Professor 
Spencer Smith has shown that the once famous "big mound" of St. Louis 
was largely a natural formation; and he expresses the opinion that many 
of the mounds in Missouri and Illinois popularly supposed to be artificial 
constructions, are wholly, or in great part, of geologic origin.^" There 
is apparently therefore no such great difference between the earth struc- 
tures of the Chahta tribes, and those left us by the more northern mound 
builders, that we need suppose for the latter any material superiority in 
culture over the former when first they became known to the whites; 
nor is there any probability in assuming that the Mound Builders of the 
Ohio were in fact the progenitors of the Chahta tribes, and were driven 
south probably about three or four hundred years before the discovery. 
Such is the conviction to which the above reasoning leads us. 

In the course of it, I have said nothing about the condition of the arts 
of the Mound Builders compared with that of the early Southern 
Indians; nor have I spoken of their supposed peculiar religious beliefs 
which a recent writer thinks to point to "Toltec" connections;* nor have 

1 discussed the comparative craniology of the Mound Builders, upon 
which some very remarkable hypotheses have been erected; nor do I 
think it worth while to do so, for in the present state of anthropological 
science, all the facts of these kinds relating the Mound Builders which 
we have as yet learned, can have no appreciable weight to the investi- 
gator. 



* Thos. E. Pickett, The Testimony of the Mounds: Considered with especial reference to the Pre-Historic Arch- 
aeology of Kentucky and the adjoining States, pp. 9, 28, (Mayeville, 1876.) 



CRUCIAL COPPER.^ 
1 ' 

N IMPLEMENT of unalloyed copper has recently come 
into the prehistoric cabinet of the Wisconsin Historical 
Society, which is, in some respects, of more interest than any 
of the two hundred specimens there. 

It is a socket spear-head (4^ x f inches,) the blade bev- 
eled like a bayonet, but flatter. Its socket was pierced for a 
rivet to pass through and fasten the spear-head to its shaft. 
In this particular it does not differ from a dozen other spear sockets. 
It also retains the rivet in its place, and it thus differs from all other 
known tools of copper except one which is also in the Madison museum. 
But while, in that other implement the rivet is copper, in the last found 
specimen it is of iron. 

The material was not at first suspected, and so was not detected till, 
on rubbing off dust and rust, the color at the head of the rivet was seen 
to contrast with the socket in which it was fixed. In order to test the 
metal decisively, I had the spear-head nicely balanced, and then brought 
a magnet near the rivet. The rivet was attracted and equilibrium de- 
stroyed. There seems no room for further doubt. 

This unique relic was picked in the autumn of 1880, by Sanford 
Marsh, in Waukesha county, Wisconsin, in Township 8, Range 18 East, 
and near North Lake. It was discovered on a hill that had never been 
cultivated, and the point was the only portion above the surface of the 
ground. 

This insignificant bit of iron imbedded in the copper, weighs but a few 
grains, yet may prove' the weightiest argument that has ever appeared 





A CRUCIAL COPPER. 



277 



on a great archaeological question. It has been assumed that no iron 
was ever utilized by American aborigines. It would seem to follow that 
the iron rivet proves the ancient tool it helps to make, to be modern, or 
more ancient than the coming of the whites among the Indians. If we 
say that some pre-Indian and perished American, race knew the use of 
iron, and fastened copper with it, how shall we account or the preser- 
vation of the iron from being eaten up with rust, and that during many 
a century? Or shall we say that the spear socket was at first fitted with 
a copper rivet — when that had vanished, as so many now in the Wiscon- 
sin cabinet have vanished — was lost, and in after ages found again by 
Indian or white man, and fastened with iron, a material that was before 
unknown? The tool shows no mark of having been thus tampered 
with. It is worth much study. J. D. Butler. 

Madison, Wis. 



Perhaps we can assist our friend, J. D. Butler, in solving this difficult 
problem. Many years ago there was a tomb opened in Shelby county, 
Ohio, built of finely finished rock, and after opening it they found every- 
thing of a perishable nature was dissolved into dust, but there were two 
articles remaining that were not injured by the lapse of ages. One was 
a silver coin dated in the twelfth century, and the other a steel chain 
without a particle of rust. Here is evidence that at some period in the 
history of this country there were persons here who were capable of 
manufacturing steel that would not rust, or that they brought it from a 
foreign country here. Thus we see that the same skill that manufactured 
the steel chain might have made the iron rivet so as to prevent it from 
rusting. » 





tory OF INDIAN flKIONS IN ill. 



From the German of Frommann, by Permission. 




7 mo 




)HRISTIAN Missions seem best answering their purpose, 
when they raise some strong nation hitherto savage, out 
of its native condition, instill into it by means of Chris- 
tianity a new life, that of regeneration and spiritual train- 
^ ing, and give it thus a place in history. Yet we can 
hardly deny them our sympathy, when they turn their love to a people 
on the verge of extinction, and achieve no result save to brighten at least 
its life's evening, by the trust and love of the gospel. 

Such a people are the various tribes of American Indians. To Germa- 
ny, to the brotherhood of Herrnhut especially, there accrues the merit of 
having shown them the kindness of Christ. This mission had, however, 
to contend with peculiar difficulties. These consisted far less in the 
unsusceptibility or opposition of the Indians, who might have set them- 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



279 



selves against the preaching of Christ, than in the continued feuds which 
existed in the period of which we have to tell. 

Not only did English and French struggle constantly for mastership in 
America. There also broke out mighty war in which the American col- 
onies strove for their independence of Great Britain. In addition came 
the intrigues of European traders, who saw themselves hurt in their busi- 
ness by the conversion of the natives, and who knew how to take 
shrewd advantage of the disturbances of war to cast suspicions before the 
British Government on the missionaries and to calumniate them. Thus 
on their work there broke most frequent forms, which ever and again 
wasted and destroyed their field of toil, when it stood out in fairest 
bloom. Upon this ground is exerted the activity of that remarkable man 
whom our title names. 

David Ztisberger was the son of a wealthy and pious farmer in the 
village of Zauchtenthal, in Moravia, where he was born on the nth of 
April, 1 72 1. Like many of their brethren in faith, his parents sought 
protection against the persecutions then proceeding from the side of the 
Roman Catholic Church in Bohemia and Moravia. They found recep- 
tion and shelter in Herrnhut, the newly founded colony of Count Zin- 
zendorf. But they soon traveled toward America, whither many of their 
country people had already gone in advance of them. Their little son 
David they left behind under the care of the brethren in Herrnhut. When 
he was fifteen years old, Zinzendorf took him upon a journey with him- 
self to Holland, and found him a place in the Brethren's colony, at Har- 
rendyt. The youth thought himself hampered by the strict discipline 
then prevailing. In company with a youthful relative of like opinion, he 
ran away for America, taking a ship whose captain gave him passage. 
His parents had a surprise, not joyful altogether, in his unlooked-for 
-arrival. 

The Brotherhood, which had engaged, since 1733, in the conversion of 
the Indians, had in 1739 established a settlement some sixty or seventy 
miles north of Philadelphia, which they called Nazareth. To this they 
soon added another, called Bethlehem, on the Lehigh, a tributary of the 
Delaware. Thither David Zeisberger betook himself; but with little of 
the holy trait of love to the Saviour perceptible, which animated the breth- 



280 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



ren. Yet even there, when one of the brethren asked him whether he- 
would not reform, he returned the decided answer: "That shall surely 
come and every one shall know that I am a converted man." But he 
had entered his twenty-second year, and there was nothing of a change 
to be perceived in him. He was esteemed useless for the purpose of the 
Mission. 

When, therefore, Zinzendorf, who had visited the Brotherhood in 
Pennsylvania, returned to Europe ( I 773)' ^ appeared to be a suitable- 
opportunity to let young Zeisberger go. They prompted him to return 
with the Count to Europe. The travelers were already on board. The 
anchor was even weighed, when a companion of the Count, David 
Netschmann, approached with the question to Zeisberger, if he were 
then glad to go along to Europe. 

A decided "No," was the answer, joined with the confession that 
nothing was such a heart desire to him as to be converted. 

''Then stay behind!" advised the well-disposed brother, and forthwith 
Zeisberger left the ship, went back to Bethlehem, and abode in the wil- 
derness of America. 

It was not long till the glimmering spark hid in the heart of the youth 

kindled to a clear flame. One time there was sung in the meeting of the 

brethren — 

"Abyss of love! Eternal! Blest! 

Revealed in Jesus Christ profound, 
How burns, how flames each fiery crest, 
Whose measure mind has never found! 
What lov'st thou? race of sin and shame. 
What sav'st thou? sons who curse thy name." 

These words vanquished the young man's heart. Tears of penitence 
and gratitude rolled down his eyes. The love of God to sinners made on 
him an indelible impress, which turned his soul newly and powerfully to 
Christ. 

His resolve was quickly taken. He would carry the gospel to the 
wild Indians. To them, the poor, helpless and desparing heathen, he 
would announce the comforting message of God's grace, which bless alL 
who by faith embrace the Crucified. 

In an incredibly short time he acquired, through the help of a teacher, 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



281 



who was offered in the person of a missionary, the language of the Mohe- 
gan Indians. Equally readily he learned, by means of traveling, Iroquois, 
the dialect of this powerful and wide-spread Indian race. Thus equipped, 
and with the courage, perseverance and patience of one whom Christ's 
love constrains, he began the work which he had chosen for his life's 
task. 

It was not Zeisberger's design to take a settled position, or any mission 
station. His view was a much more comprehensive one. He would 
organize work among the people at large, and thereby give it perma- 
nence. He had reflected that the Indian races, and foremost among- 
them the Delawares and Iroquois (also called the Six Nations), though 
frequently hostile to the whites, were allied to one another through trea- 
ties, and had friendly relations; also the missionaries among them were 
afforded toleration and kindness. He was fitted for living among them 
by his intimate acquaintance with their language, as also through his 
familiarity with their customs. In his fondness for the Indians, he 
adopted himself to their way of life. On the hunt he killed the game 
with ready and skillful hand. He applied himself to household matters, 
and the business of Indian architecture. He gained thus, everywhere 
among them, immense regard and peculiar influence. 

The mightiest among the Indian tribes were the Iroquois. The gen- 
eral national concerns were considered by a gathering of chiefs, held in 
Onondago, on the south bank of Lake Oneida. There was the Council- 
house, an edifice reared of lofty tree trunks, interlaced with bark of trees. 
In this, around a blazing fire, the chieftains gathered for a consideration 
of their public matters, after certain solemn forms. Thither we see our 
Zeisberger journey, in the first period of his activity, oft-repeated times 
through pathless wildernesses and unfruitful wastes; where thousand 
dangers surrounded him, he went to meditate alliances and treaties at the 
great Council-fire at Onondaga. A place of honor was given him among 
the chiefs. And as he knew by his mighty gift of language, how to 
touch their hearts, his judicious counsels usually prevailed. 

He undertook the first journey to Onondago with Bishop Spangenberg 
who visited the settlement of the brethren, in America, in 1745. One 
day, all means ot subsistence in the wilderness failed the pilgrims. They 



282 INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 

felt themselves utterly exhausted by hunger and fatigue. Then Spang- 
enberg suddenly turned to Zeisberger and said, effectionately : 

"My dear David, get your fishing-tackle ready and catch us a mess oF 
fish." 

The other declined, because there could be no fish in such clear water, 
especially at that time of year. Spangenberg replied: 

"Inasmuch as I ask it, my dear David, fish! Do it this once, only out 
of obedience." 

"Well, I will do it," he said, but thought in his heart, "the dear brother- 
knows just nothing about fish; and, indeed, it is out of his line of busi- 
ness," But when he now cast his net, how was he surprised when he 
found the same full at once of a multitude of large fishes! The hungry 
men not only were enabled to freely satisfy themselves, but, by drying 
the rest of the fish at the fire, to make a considerable provision for their 
further journey. 

"Did I not say to thee that we have a good Heavenly Father?" Spang- 
enberg asked, with a smile. 

With restless, untiring zeal, Zeisberger strove to convert certain Indi- 
ans, whom he then collected in a small settlement, and built up into a 
flourishing colony. His word, which testified of the grace of God in 
Christ, kindled and supported by love to the Master and the brethren, 
found entrance into the hearts of these poor children of the forest. Wil- 
lingly they listened to the word of their beloved teacher, even when it 
scourged them. They obeyed when it called them, as was sometimes 
necessary, from relapse into their former roving life. Once, when he 
hastened in such a case to a settlement, to speak with the people "as 
fathers talk with their children," the chieftain, with his wife, conferred 
the mighty instantaneous force of his language. "My brother," he said, 
"I feel myself saddened like a little child." 

Into the deepest forests and remotest wilds Zeisberger was forced by 
his glowing apostle-like zeal. Thus he came to Goshgoschink, on the 
furthest banks of the Ohio. Its inhabitants were credited with having 
no equal in bloodthirstiness and wickedness. They were known to inflict 
death on their captive enemies by the most refined and horrible tortures. 
Even over this people, so depraved, Zeisberger, through the love of 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



283 



Christ, prevailed. At first, it is true, they paid little attention to his 
counsel. They even sought his life. He was compelled to dwell, a 
whole winter, his adherents with him, in a block house near by, as a 
fortress, to protect him against their onsets — and thence he was, at last, 
driven out. But the seed of the Gospel, strewn by him, struck root, even 
into this hard sail. 

The council of Goshgoschink, after this, decreed in solemn assembly, 
that it be permitted every inhabitant of the village to hear the gospel; 
that Zeisberger's pardon be asked for the injuries inflicted on him, and 
that he be assured of all friendship. The proud, bloodthirsty warriors 
called themselves Zeisberger's brethren. Henceforth his God should be 
their God. They were ready, too, withersoever he would go, to go with 
him. 

These peaceful labors for the conversion and Christian training of the 
poor heathen were often hindered. By means of letters which 
issued from European traders, hostile Indian tribes were stirred up 
against the mission settlements. There were frequent sudden attacks, 
ending with horrible massacres among the Indian converts and the mis- 
sionaries, or calumnies to the English Government from the same dark 
sources, brought on the missionaries from that quarter judicial proceed- 
ings and prosecutions. More than once, therefore, Zeisberger found 
himself constrained, as a second Moses, to flee with his newly won Indian 
church through deserts and endless wildernesses, even deep into the 
densest forests of America. Thus he would save them from ruin and 
perdition at the hands of European Christian civilization. The hardships 
were unspeakable which they had to endure on such a journey. They 
must press through pathless forests, climb high mountain ridges, cross 
rushing forest rivers. Often the wanderers are exposed to sore danger 
from the nearness of hostile Indians. The provision of victuals fails, so 
that the adults must appease their hunger by ill-tasting wild potatoes, the 
children by the juice of the peeled off bark of the slippery elm. But 
God's help is manifest in these dire extremities. They are strangely 
delivered. At last the limit of their wandering is attained. 

Under Zeisberger's skilled leadership, by the diligent toil of his little 
flock, a new colony soon arises. Its neat dwellings, fields, gardens, and 



284 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



little church meet the astonished gaze. There comes now, through cir- 
cumstances which forbid for a moment the further spread of the gospel, 
an enforced leisure to the tireless preacher of the grace of God. He uses 
this partly for the inner culture of the now existing Christian community. 
He instructs them from selections of Scripture and spiritual songs in the 
Delaware and Mohegan languages. Thus for more than twenty-five 
years Zeisberger is employed, amidst unspeakable hardships, with invin- 
cible mental energy to establish Christianity, through untiring work and 
lull, holy love among the poor natives of America, and to protect ever 
anew this young growth against the dangers preparing from without. 

In 1 77 1 he came to know Netawatmus, chief of the Dela wares, a 
remarkable man, of strong mind and decided character. This man 
invited him to found a new colony on the Muskinghum river, in the 
most distant parts of the region of Ohio. Zeisberger accepted the invi- 
tation. There arose the colony of Schoenbrunn (1772) which throve 
splendidly. Netawatmis then invited the Indian communities in the 
earlier established settlements, of which some stood in rich blossom, to 
join themselves with Schoenbrunn. So under Zeisberger's lead a little 
Christian State was erected in the deepest forest, an oasis in the spirit- 
ual waste of Indian heathendom. The number of converted Indians 
reached 414. A new and joyous life in faith and love prevailed. The 
chief's family followed Christ. Netawatmis himself, although he attended 
divine service constantly, could not, to his own sorrow, decide to acknowl- 
edge Christ. Still another chief of the Delawares, Killbuck, surnamed 
White Eyes, like the other in valor, magnanimity, judgment and moral 
character, was won to the gospel side. The new converts grew in spirit, 
in knowledge and in strength of believing. 

Zeisberger was, and remained the soul of all. He flourished among 
these sons of the forest, as a patriarch in the midst of his family, respected, 
loved and reverenced by all. He was wont to name these days the golden 
era of his life. 

But they were of short duration. Netawatmis died in 1777. When he 
felt his end near, he summoned all the field chieftains and counselors of 
the Delawares. He expressed to them his desire that all the Dalawares 
receive the gospel, and not suffer the name of Christ to perish from the 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



285 



nation. They promised, so far as was in their power, to fulfil this desire. 
Then he called Zeisberger, and begged him to tell him something more 
of the love of Christ. 

In the midst of the missionary's prayers, offered with tears and silent 
groans, the old man closed his eyes. All the chiefs stood trembling about 
the couch of their dead chieftain. Then White Eyes spoke, the Bible in 
his hand: 

"My friends, you have just heard the last wish of our dead chief. Let 
us obey him. We will kneel down before God who created us, and 
pray him that he will be gracions to us, and reveal His will. As we can- 
not show to those yet unborn the holy covenant which we have sworn by 
this corpse, we will pray the Lord our God that He will make it known 
to our children's children." 

To the chieftain's funeral came a numerous embassy of the Iroquois and 
Hurons, with the Delawares, approached with quiet grief the place of 
burial. The chief of the Iroquois embassy wrapped the body of the 
Delaware chief in clean buckskin, and strewed the grave with oak leaves. 
Zeisberger was in Delaware dress among the followers. As the earth 
covered his friend's body, he wept bitterly before the eyes of all; an out- 
burst of feeling, that only with effort the chieftains also repressed. It 
was stringently forbidden them by Indian rules. 

Meanwhile, the war of American Independence broke out. The mis- 
sionaries, Zeisberger at the head, employed every means to determine the 
Indians to strict neutrality in this contest. Nevertheless, parties rose 
among them, so that varience entered between the different tribes. 

An English governor had established himself at Detroit, below Lake 
Huron, for the purpose of inciting the Indian tribes to a participation in 
the war against the Americans. Thus the mission stations were menaced 
from different sides. 

Zeisberger, with his people, quitted the sweetly flourishing Shoenbrunn 
after he had himself destroyed the dwellings and church, to save them 
profanation from heathen outrage. For a time he lived in a neighboring 
Christian colony. His life was sought; he was saved from a murderous 
assault, as by a miracle. A journey to the brethren at Bethlehem (1781) 
had this result, that, at the desire and request of the brethren, Zeisberger, 



286 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



in his sixtieth year, took to wife Susanna Tekron. Soon after his return, 
he, with two of his assistants, were, by a British agent of the name of 
Elliot, taken captive and put in chains. All the villages of the Christian 
communities were destroyed, their churches thrown down, and their 
dwellings burned. Only on the pledge that he would promptly emigrate 
with the Christian Indians to the Sandusky River, were the missionaries 
set at liberty. With sorrowful hearts, the little band looked back at the 
wasting of their dwelling place on the Muskinghum, where the grace of 
God had been so richly shown them, and the gospel had so blessed a 
progress — and arrived after an endlessly painful and perilous roaming of 
four weeks, on the southwest bank of Lake Erie. Here a dwelling place 
had been assigned them by the British commandant. It was a sterile and 
inhospitable place. The winter was at the door, yet the persecuted band 
did not lose courage, or cast away hope. 

The missionaries were soon summoned to Detroit, to the British gov- 
ernor, in order to answer charges brought against them. With three of 
his associates, Zeisberger, in this inclement time of the year, had to under- 
take the laborious journey. Benumbed by cold, tormented by hunger, 
with clothing rent, soiled by dirt, their necessary luggage on their back, 
the messengers of Christ thus entered Detroit. They were obliged to 
wait several hours before the door of the governor. Then they were 
directed to a French family, who kindly entertained them. 

An Indian chief, Pipe by name, was set up by the governor to make 
charges against Zeisberger. He came when court met with a stake in 
his hand, on which were fastened two human heads, still bloody. But 
his tongue failed him, and his comrades in the work of accusation. He 
rather explained that the missionaries were good men, and that the father 
(the governor) should speak good words to them. 

The governor pronounced the missionaries free from charges, assured 
them that their pains for the extension of Christianity pleased him, con- 
sented to their return to their community, supplied them with clothes and 
other necessaries, and told them that his door would ever stand open to 
them. 

The much tried missionaries gladly turned , back to their people on 
Lake Erie. Soon came great distress. The cold had greatly increased; 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



87 



their provisions were almost exhausted; they were in danger of being 
wholly exterminated by hunger and cold. A portion of the Indians were 
dispatched to their former dwelling place on the Muskingum, to collect 
some grain yet to be found there and to bring it home. They had fulfilled 
their errand and begun to return home when an American scouting 
party of several hundred white soldiers made their appearance. Our Indians 
who were of the peace party thought they had nothing to fear from them. 
On the whites seeming friendly they joined their ranks. But scarcely 
had they approached the train when the soldier troop claimed the 
Indians as prisoners, and gave them the space of but a few hours to pre- 
pare for death. In Christian resignation they besought one the other for 
the forgivenes of wrongs that had perchance been done, kneeled down 
with oneanother and prayed fervently together. Resolutely they said to 
the inhuman mob: "We have commended our spirits to God, and he has 
given us firm confidence of heart that by his grace he will receive us into 
his heavenly kingdom." Then a daring villain snatches up a heavy ham- 
mer and dashed in the skulls of fourteen. Then he reached the hammer 
to another, with the words, "My arm gives out, do you make haste." 

And so were miserably slain ninety poor victims, reddening with 
their martyr blood the earth. A few only escaped by flight to carry the 
news of this act of infamy to their brethren. Even the heathen Indians 
were deeply stirred over this brutal murder, and swore bloody revenge, 
which they also took. To Zeisberger it was the heaviest blow that ever 
befell him. 

Meanwhile the British Governor had assigned the missionaries a suita- 
ble tract of land on Lake Huron for their settlement. The gospel there 
found large entrance into the surrounding savage tribes of the Hurons 
and Chippewas. The hostility of the Huron chiefs, however, prevented 
the security desired for the continuance of these mission efforts. 

When then the American Congress, at the making of peace with the 
Indians, expressly reserved for Christians the land tract on the Muskin- 
gum possessed by them before, Zeisberger, with the entire community, 
now increased to the number of 300 or 400 souls, decided to emigrate to 
the old loved residence. Twelve years lasted the journey, which was 
hindered, now by the fury of the elements, now by the war disturbances 



288 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



breaking out anew. At last it was permitted our Zeisberger, the old 
man of seventy six-years, after seventeen years' absence, to set foot again 
upon the place of his love and his longing. He now named it Goshen, 
because he viewed it as the preparation-place for his heavenly Canaan. 
There, in unbroken peace, he lived from this time on, honored and 
beloved of the poor Indians whose souls he had won for Christ, a 
teacher, too, and model for the younger missionaries. 

Gently, indeed, but perceptibly, the marks of an advanced old age came. 
First, his feet refused him service, a sore want to one who was used thus 
to carry around the word of life. Yet strength enough remained to the 
old man, now eighty seven, to exchange letters with distant friends and 
to undertake corrections of his writings respecting the Onondaga and 
Delaware languages. But at last he could not even do this. He became 
blind. Now he could only from his adoring heart exercise his memory 
upon the manifold grace of God which he had experienced in this event- 
ful pilgrimage. 

In October, of the year 1808, he felt that the end was nigh. His sick- 
ness was painless. But one thing caused him unrest, the spiritual condi 
tion of the Indians. His children in Christ, clinging so fervently to him, 
entered in small companies to his death couch. "Father," they said, "for- 
give us everything whereby we have caused thee pain. We will give 
our hearts to the Saviour, arid live for him only, in the world." The ven- 
erable old man believed, exhorted and blessed them. "I now depart 
from all my labor and to be at home with the Lord. He has never yet 
left me in need, and now, too, He will not fail me. I have reviewed my 
whole course of life, and found that there is much to be fogiven." After 
a silent prayer he exclaimed: "The Saviour is near. v He will speedily 
come to bear me home." During the singing of spiritual melodies which 
the Indians struck up he gave up his spirit. 

Zeisberger extended his life to almost eighty-eight years. Sixty-seven 
years of the same he devoted with marvelous love, perseverance and 
power, to the ministry of the Lord among the Indians. By his endow- 
ment and acquirement in Indian speech, by the great consideration which 
he enjoyed among them, by his decided and energetic disposition which 
fitted him for command, he could easily have risen to their commander- 



INDIAN MISSIONS IN OHIO. 



289 



ship, and by participating in their war, have won worldly fame and 
power. But he preferred the quiet triumph of the gospel amid peculiar 
poverty and lowliness. 

By the love of Christ which moved him, by the power of the word, 
by zeal and courage, by self-denial and endurance, he became truly an 
apostolic character. When we look over the results of his preaching 
the Gospel among the unfortunate Indian folk, the sorrowful question 
forces itself, Were these poor aborigines of the New World so utterly 
unfitted for civilization through Christianity and religious training? Or, 
weighs not their destruction as a sore crime on the soul of European 
Christian humanity. 



.^ttftttl 




TRUE HISTORY OF THE MASSACRE OF HIHETY-SIX 
CHRISTIAN IHDIAHS AT GNADENHUETTEH, 
OHIO, MARCH 8th, A. D. 1782. 



Alas! alas! for treachery ! the boasting white men came 
With weapons of destruction, — the sword of lurid flame; 
And while the poor defenseless ones tog-ether bow'd in prayer, 
Unpitying they smote them while kneeling meekly there. 

The cry of slaughter'd innocence went loudly up to heaven; 
And can ye hope, ye murdering bands, to ever be forgiven? 
We know not, — yet we ween for you the last lingering prayer 
That trembled on your victims' lips, was, "God, forgive and spare!" 

HE Moravian Missionary establishments at Gnadenhuetten, 
Salem and Schoenbrunn on the Tuscarawas River, in 
P Ohio, among the Indians, were frequently interrupted^ 

Tand the faith and patience of the Missionary brethren and 
their Indian congregations often severely tried. As their 
£ religion taught them to cultivate the art of peace instead of 

war, and as they wished to preserve neutrality between the 
English and their Indian allies on the one hand, and the Americans on 
the other, they were subject to constant suspicion, and were treated in a 
hostile manner by both parties. The English Governor at Fort Detroit, 




GNADENIIUETTEN MASSACRE. 



2D I 



influenced by the calumnies of their enemies, believed that the Christian 
Indians were partisans with the Americans, and that the Missionaries 
acted as spies. In order to rid himself of them; he sent a message to 
Pimoacan the half-king of the Wyandots, to take up the Indian congre- 
gations and their teachers, and carry them away. This man, instigated 
by the Delaware Captain Pipe, a sworn enemy to the mission, at length 
agreed to commit the act of injustice. 

In August 1781 a troop of warriors amounting to upwards of 300, com- 
manded by the half-king, the Delaware Captain Pipe, and an English 
Captain Elliott, made their appearance at Gnadenhuetten to accomplish 
this cruel object. The half-king and his retinue put on the mask of 
friendship and proposed the removal of the Christian Indians as a meas- 
ure dictated by a regard for their safety. This proposal they respectfully 
declined, promising, however, to consider their words, and return an 
answer, the next winter. 

The half-king would probably have been satisfied with this answer 
had not the English officer Elliott, and Captain Pipe urged him to perse- 
vere. The consequence was that the hostile party became peremptory in 
their demands, and insisted on their removal. Their vengeance was par- 
ticularly directed against the Missionaries, and they held frequent consul- 
tations in which it was proprosed to murder all the white brethren and 
sisters, and even the Indian assistants. Finally after much violence, and 
many barbarous cruelties they compelled the Christian Indians and their 
teachers to emigrate, leaving behind them a great quantity of corn in 
their stores, besides a large crop just ready to be reaped, together with 
potatoes and other vegetables and garden fruits. 

In the beginning of October, 1781, the Missionaries, with the greater 
part of their congregation, arrived under the escort of the Wyandots at 
Sandusky. Here their savage conductors abandoned them, and loaded 
with plunder returned to their homes, leaving them to shift for them- 
selves in a country that was destitute of game, and every means of sup- 
port. Pimoacan exulted in the accomplishment of his designs, and 
informed them that being now in his dominions, they were bound to obey 
his mandates, and commanded them to hold themselves in readiness to 
go to battle with him. 



292 



GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 



For a time the exiles roved to and fro, seeking a favorable locality for 
their stay over winter, and at length pitched upon a spot, situated on the 
East side of the Upper Sandusky, as the best they could find. Yet even 
here the country was dreary and barren, and they were at a loss to con- 
ceive whence the means of supporting so many should come during the 
winter which had already set in. Their small stock of provisions was 
nearly exhausted, and the missionaries had to depend upon the voluntary 
contributions of those members who had a little Indian corn left. 

With their usual diligence, rising through faith above all disheartening 
trials, they commenced at once building huts for the winter. During 
their labors their daily meetings were kept under the broad canopy of 
heaven. When the shadows of evening fell upon them, they seated 
themselves around fires in the open air; one of the missionaries delivering 
to the listening circle a short discourse. At times, some of the strolling 
savages would also attend, not to hear the gospel preached, but to scoff 
and laugh. What a sight! The genius of religion might hover over it, 
and point to the redeeming power which accompanied the cross of 
Christ! Wild Savages cleaving to the hope of eternal life amid all the 
ill fortune that seemed at every step to mark their Christian pilgrimage! 
But their joy no man could take from them. 

A message then came to them from the commandant at Detroit, that 
the Missionaries should quickly repair thither. Glad of the opportunity 
to exculpate themselves and refute the many lies propagated respecting 
them, four of the teachers, with several Indian brethren, obeyed the 
summons. They appeared before the court martial at that place; their 
conduct was investigated, especially in relation to the imputed "corres- 
pondence with the rebels, and frustrating of the intended attacks ol 
Indians upon the frontiers," and they were completely exonerated from 
all blame.* 

* Dr. Doddridge in his Notes on the Indian Wars appears to me to have given credence to the charges of 
Moravians having often sent runners to Fort Pitt to give notice of the approach of war parties and so far 
violating the terms of neutralty, upon insufficient authority. It is not denied that the Christian Indians 
relieved the prisoners who were carried through their settlements, and often dissuaded their heathen 
kinsmen from pursuing their expeditions hut their hearts were equally open to every other appeal of suf- 
fering humanity. It would appear strange that a circumstance like the one conceded by Dr. Doddridge 
should not have come to light before the tribunal at Detroit, confronted as they were with their enemies, 
the chief of whom, Captain Pipe, after some fruitless evasions, was obliged to confess, that he had calum- 
niated them. 



GNADENIIUETTEN MASSACRE 



The Governor endeavored to atone for all the ill treatment he had 
brought npon them, by every act of kindness. He provided them with 
suitable clothing and other necessaries, repurchased their watches for 
them, and parted from them with the most marked expressions of esteem. 

Thankful for the gracious interposition of God in their behalf, the Mis- 
sionaries returned home, and were greeted with unbounded joy by their 
people, who had apprehended that they would be kept prisoners, as had 
also been the commandant's original intention. Notwithstanding- their 
extreme poverty the following months were a joyful season to them, and 
they celebrated Christmas with cheerfulness and a blessing in their newly 
built log chapel. 

The year [782 had now commenced, and their situation was distressing 
in the extreme. A supply of 400 bushels of Indian corn which had been 
fetched from the deserted towns was again exhausted, and famine stared 
them in the face. Provisions of all kinds were wanting; corn was very 
scarce throughout the country, and such as had it asked a dollar for three 
or four quarts ; the winter was unusually severe, and wood difficult to obtain. 
The cattle began to die of hunger; and the congregation were driven to 
the necessity of supporting themselves upon their carcasses. In some 
instances babes perished for want of nourishment from their mothers' 
impoverished breasts. 

In these deplorable circumstances, after due deliberation, the Indians 
came to the determination to return once more for food to their forsaken 
fields, where the corn was still standing. Having formed themselves 
into several divisions, they set out, in all about one hundred and fifty 
men, women and children, the greater part to return no more, but to fall 
a sacrifice to the treachery and revenge of the white men in the notor- 
ious massacre at Gnadenhuetten.* 

The actors in this foul transaction consisted of a military band of about 
one hundred men, from the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, 
under the command of Col. David Williamson. The murder was pre- 
meditated; for their purpose was to proceed as far as Sandusky, in order 
to destroy all the Moravian Indians. Among the incentives to this expe- 

* My authorities for the following narration are Zeisberger's Journal, Holmes' and Loskiel's Histories, 
Willet's Scenes in the wilderness, and Doddridge's Notes. 

s 



294 



GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 



dition against a quiet and peaceable people, were unusually the preda- 
tions of the savages upon the Ohio settlements, in the month of February, 
which, it is alleged, led to the conclusion that the murderers were either 
the Moravians, or that the warriors had their winter quarters at their 
towns; in either case the Moravians being in fault, the safety of the fron- 
tier settlements required the destruction of their estabishments. Besides 
the dismissal of Shabosh and some Christian Indians, who had been 
captured in the fall, (by Col. Gibson, of Pittsburg), which was but a 
common act of justice, gave great offense to the neighboring settlers. 
Men of the first standing in those parts, in consequence, volunteered to 
accompany Col. Williamson; each man furnishing himself with his own 
ammunition, and provisions, and many of them traveling on horseback. 

Gol. Gibson, of Fort Pitt despatched messengers, (as soon as he heard 
of the plot) to warn the Indians of the approaching danger, but they 
arrived too late. From another quarter, however, they received timely 
notice, but, unfortunately, they thought the information unworthy of 
credit. So secure did they feel at their own occupations, that they 
neglected all their usual precautions. Parties were at work in the corn- 
fields, at each of the three settlements, Gnadenhuetten, Salem and 
Scho«nbrunn. They had already made fine progress, and gathered a 
large quantity of grain, and were beginning to bundle up their packs to 
take their final leave of the place, when suddenly the militia made their 
appearance. 

When within a mile of Gnadenhuetten, Col. Williamson's party had 
encamped for the night and reconnoitered their positions. On the morn- 
ing of the 6th of March the following plan for an assault was then 
devised. One half of the men were to cross the river, and attack the 
Indians who were at work in their cornfields on the West side, whilst 
the other half, being divided into three detachments, were to fall simul- 
taneously from different quarters upon the village on the East side. 
When the former division reached the river, they could not ford it, 
because it was high and filled with floating ice; but, observing something 
like a canoe on the opposite side, a young man of the party swam across, 
and brought over what proved to be a large sap-trough. In this, going 
two by two, they commenced crossing, but impatient at the delay, a few 



\ 



- GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 295 

•got over, swimming at its side and holding fast to the edges. In a man- 
ner sixteen had crossed over, when the sentinels, who were in advance, 
discovered a lad, named Joseph Shabosh, the son of the assistant Mis- 
sionary, tired at him and broke one of his arms. The rest hastened to 
the spot, sending word by those who remained on the East side, for the 
other detachments to march upon Gnadenhuetten without a moment's 
delay, supposing that the firing would have alarmed the inhabitants. 
With most piteous entreaties young Shabosh begged them to spare his 
life, representing that he was the son of a white man; but regardless of 
his cries and tears, they killed him with their hatchets and scalped him. 
After thus whetting their appetites in his warm life-blood, the party 
approached the plantation. 

The first to discover their approach was an Indian named Jacob, a 
brother-in-law to young Shabosh, who was employed near the banks of 
the river, tying up his corn. Remaining unperceived, he was about to 
hail them, supposing them to be a friendly party, when at that instant 
they shot at one of the brethren who was just crossing the river from the 
town. Upon perceiving this, Jacob fled with the utmost precipitation, 
and before their faces were turned towards him, was out of sight. Had 
he acted with some coolness and courage, he might have saved many a 
valuable life; especially by proceeding to Salem, and giving the alarm. 
But instead of this, fear led him to flee several miles in an opposite direc- 
tion, where he hid himself a day and a night. 

The party of sixteen now drew near to the Indians, who were at work 
in the fields in considerable numbers, and had their guns with them, and 
finding that they were greatly out-numbered, accosted them in a friendly 
manner. They pretended to pity them on account of their past suffer- 
ings, said they had come to conduct them to a place of safety near Pitts- 
burg; and advised them to discontinue their work at once, and return 
with them to the town to hold a further parley. To all this the Indians, 
anticipating no harm from American soldiers, and ignorant as yet of the 
murder of Shabosh, cheerfully acceded, not dreaming that they were 
to be caught "like fish in an evil net, and as birds that are caught in the 
snare," they rejoiced that they had found such true friends, and imagined 



296 



GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 



they saw the hand of God in it, — who was about to put an end to all' 
their sufferings, and lead them to a more secure and pleasant country. 

The other detachments had meanwhile arrived at the village, where 
they found but one man, and a woman, whom they shot, as she was hid- 
ing in the bushes. But so prepossessed were the Indians with the idea 
of removing that nothing was able to shake their confidence in the white 
men. They cheerfully surrendered their guns, hatchets and other weap- 
ons, upon receiving the promise that they should be restored at Pittsburg, 
shewed them where they had secreted their commnnion wine and other 
property in the woods, helped them to pack it up, and began to make 
every preparation for the journey to Pittsburg. 

The native assistant John Martin had gone to Salem, immediately upon 
the arrival of the party, to inform the party of the state of affairs; and 
the next day a troop of horsemen rode down to bring them all in. With 
the same confiding trust in their professions of peace and good-will, they 
returned with them, conversing on the road upon religious topics, in 
which their attendants joined with much appearance of piety. Simple 
children of the forest, how dove-like had Christianity made you! How 
little did you dream of deceit and base treachery, and that as sheep you 
were being led to the slaughter! Arriving at the river-bank opposite 
Gnadenhuetten, their eyes began to open, however, when it was too late. 
They discovered a spot of blood on the sand, which excited disquietude 
and alarm. Soon their boding fears received full confirmation. As soon 
as they entered the town all were seized, as those in town had been a 
short time before, their guns and pocket knives were taken by their con- 
ductors; they were pinioned, and confined in two houses standing some 
distance apart; the men in one, the women and children in the other. 
Here they met together — associates for the last time in sorrow. They 
mingled their tears and their sympathies together, and their prayers 
ascended to the throne of grace. 

The miscreants now held a consultation, to decide the fate of the pris- 
oners. The charges which they brought against them were, that their 
horses, as also their axes, pewter basins and spoons, and all they pos- 
sessed had been stolen or obtained by improper means from the white 
people, and also that they were warriors; and not Christians. All of them 



GNADENIIUETTEN MASSACRE. 



2<>7 



were utterly false and frivolous. On the contrary it is presumable that 
the expedition would never have been undertaken, or at least not so 
imprudently conducted, if they had anticipated resistance. They well 
knew the pacific principles of the Moravian Indians, and calculated on 
blood and plunder without having a shot fired at them. With a mere 
show of defense it is likely that such men might have been repulsed. 
Some deeds of blood were, no doubt, imputed to these Indians, for. 
according to the statement of the missionaries, the Wyandot and Dela- 
ware warriors, who were inimical to the Gospel, had always made it a 
point to return from their campaigns through their settlements, in the 
expectation that it would bring the whites upon the Moravians. Some 
warriors, too, accompanied them on their return from Sandusky, crossed 
the Ohio and committed several murders, and on their way back stopped 
near Gnadenhuetten where they impaled a woman and child; but it is 
equally certain that the Christians had no part or lot in the matter. Two 
of the warriors were captured at the same time, and were tomahawked 
outside the town by the white men. As to the other charge, it rested 
upon no other foundation than that one man is said to have found here 
the bloody clothes of his wife and children, which were plainly those of 
the woman and child killed near the town, and secreted here by their 
enemies. Others may have recognized property in the hands of the 
Indians, since it is probable that the warriors, in their passages through 
the villages, were in the habit of bartering various articles of value, for 
provisions, in lieu of money; but if this was contrary to their neutral 
engagements, it was unavoidable, as the warriors possessed both the will 
and the means to compel them to give them whatever they wante'd. 

On such pretexts, the Indians were condemned to death. The blood- 
thirsty troops were clamorous to begin the butchery without delay. The 
officers hesitated. But can it be doubted, that if they had been really 
averse to the crime, they might have checked the vindictive spirit of 
their unprincipled subordinates? And had Col. Williamson been the 
brave man he is represented to have been, would he not have staked his 
life upon their defense, rather than that the unoffending and pious cap- 
tives should perish? It was probably, therefore, more for the sake of 
appearances, and to develop a part of the awful responsibility upon their 



298 GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 



men, than from any motives of mercy that they determined first to let it 
be put to a vote of the whole corps. Col. Williamson put the question 
in form: "Whether the Moravian Indians should be taken prisoners to* 
Pittsburg, or put to death;" and requesting that all those who were in, 
favor of saving their lives, should step out of their line and form a sec- 
ond rank. On this sixteen or eighteen stepped forward, and upwards of 
eighty remained. The fate of the Indians was thus decided on and they 
were told to prepare for death, a brief respite till the morrow being all 
that was granted them. 

During the night the murderers deliberated whether they should burn; 
them alive or tomahawk and scalp them, and a few proposed milder 
measures; but the voice of mercy was overruled, and it was determined to 
butcher them one by one. The Indians were at first overwhelmed at the 
news of their impending fate. But quickly collecting themselves again,, 
and patiently submitting to the inscrutable decree of the Lord, whose 
servants they had become, they spent the night in prayer, asking pardon 
of each other for whatever offense they had given or grief they had occa- 
sioned, and exhorting one another to a faithful and meek endurance of 
their trials to the end. At the dawn of morning they then offered fer- 
vent supplications to God their Saviour, and united in singing praises unto- 
Him, in the joyful hope that they should soon enter into His glorious pres- 
ence, in everlasting bliss. In this hour the consolations of divine grace 
abounded in their souls; they felt the peace of God which passeth all 
understanding, and cheerfully resigned, they awaited the summons of 
their executioners. 

It was the morning of the 8th of March when the awful scene was 
enacted. The murderers came to them whilst they were engaged 
in singing, and asked, "whether they were"* ready to die?" and received 
for answer, "that they had commended themselves to God, who had 
given them the assurance in their hearts that he would receive their 
souls." The carnage then immediately commenced. By couples they 
were led bound into two houses that had been selected for the purpose^ 
and were aptly termed the "Slaughter-Houses," the men to the one, the 
women and children to the other, and as they entered were knocked 
down and butchered. A Pennsylvanian of the party conducted the 



GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 



299 



slaughter of the brethren. Taking up a cooper's mallet, (the house had 
been occupied by a cooper,) he said, looking at it and handling it, "How 
exactly this will answer for the business.'" With this as the instrument 
of death, he continued knocking down one after the other, until he had 
killed fourteen with his own hands. He then handed the mallet to one 
of his fellow-murderers, saying: "My arm fails me; go on in the same 
way; I think I have done pretty well"* Of the horrors that transpired 
in the house of the poor women and children we have no further account, 
than that a woman, called Christina, who had resided in Bethlehem, Pa., 
and could speak English well, fell upon her knees before the Captain, 
and begged him to spare their lives, but w r as told, it was impossible. So 
ferocious had they become that they were not satisfied with simply 
destroying their lives, but disfigured the dead and dying bodies in a hor- 
rible manner. 

Thus perished at least ninety innocent persons, of all ages, from the 
gray-haired sire down to the helpless innocent at its mother s breast. 
Leaving the houses which were now reeking with the blood and man- 
gled remains of their victims, they went to a little distance, making 
merry over the horrid deed; but returning again they saw one named 
Abel, who though scalped and mangled was attempting to rise, and 
despatched him. 

The whole number of the slain was ninety-six; of these some were 
killed before the general massacre, as Shabosh and his wife, and several 
who attempted to escape by swimming the river were shot. Several 
warriors were likewise killed at the same time, outside of the town. Of 
the whole number of Moravian Indians forty were men, twenty-two 
were women, and thirty-four children. Five of the men were respect- 
able native assistants: Samuel Moore, Tobias Jones, Isaac Glickican and 
John Martin. Samuel Moore and Tobias had been members of the con- 
gregation of that eminently devoted servant of God and most faithful 
missionary, David Brainerd. After his death they left New Jersey and 
joined the Moravians. Samuel had received his education from Brainerd, 
could read and w r as so well acquainted with the English language, that 
for many years he served in the capacity of interpreter. The others, also, 

* This was related by a lad who escaped out of the house, and who understood English well. 



300 



GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 



bore excellent characters and were very useful members of the Church. 
Isaac Glickican had been a sachem, and was noted among his country- 
men for superior wisdom and courage. 

Only two lads of fifteen years of age effected their escape from the 
hands of the murderers. One of these was knocked down and scalped 
with*the rest in the slaughter-house of the brethren. Recovering a little, 
he looked around, and beheld on all sides the mangled corpses of the 
dead. Among them he observed Abel attempting to rise, whom the 
white men, coming in soon afterwards, despatched. With great pres- 
ence of mind he lay quite still among the heaps of slain, and when they 
had departed crept over their bodies to the door, still keeping himself in 
such a position as easily to feign deadj if any person should approach. 
As it began to grow dusk, he quickly got out at the door, hid himself 
behind the house until it was quite dark and then escaped. The other 
lad, had loosened his bonds, soon after it was ascertained that they were 
to die, succeeded in escaping out of the house where they were confined* 
and crept by a small cellar window under the house where the women 
were subsequently butchered. Here he remained undetected, and as the 
butchery proceeded, saw the blood flow in streams into the cellar. He 
kept himself concealed till evening, when he with much difficulty made 
his way out of the narrow window into the woods. These two met 
providentially, and staying a while to watch the movements of the white 
party, journeyed together toward Sandusky. 

The Indians who were gathering corn at Schoenbrunn were saved 
from the fate of their brethren. They had despatched two brethren to 
Gnadenhuetten and Salem, carrying intelligence to them from the mis- 
sionaries, on the day that the band arrived. These, on their way discov- 
ered to their great surprise the marks of horses' hoofs, along and beside 
the path, and cautiously followed the tracks, until they found the body 
of Shabosh. They buried his body, ar d after observing that there were 
many white men in the village, and concluding from the fate of Shabosh 
that their brethren had all perished by the same cruel hands, hastily 
returned to Schoenbrunn. Here all took instant flight concealing them- 
selves in the woods for some days, on the opposite side of the river. 
When the murderers arrived therefore upon the following day, they 



GNADENHUETTEN MASSACRE. 



301 



might easily have been discovered; but, being struck with an unaccount- 
able blindness, and rinding no trace of Indians, they soon rode off, after 
pillaging and burning the village. 

In the same night of the massacre the white men set fire to all the 
houses of Gnadenhuetten, and to the slaughter houses among the rest. 
The dead bodies were but partially consumed, and their bones remained 
to bleach in the sun until after some twenty years they received interment 
by friendly hands. By the light of the burning village the murderers 
then departed, rending the air with shouts and yells more savage than 
ever arose in the wilderness before, carrying with them the scalps, about 
fifty horses, numerous blankets and some articles of plunder, which they 
exposed to public sale in Pittsburg. On their way back they made 
another attack on an Indian settlement a short distance from Pittsburg, 
and were partially successful. 

After a journey, attended with innumerable hardships, the Indians from 
Schoenbrunn arrived at Sandusky almost famished, having left all their 
provisions behind. They returned to a dreary country; and to add to 
their distress, they returned to take another leave of their teachers. Well 
might they say with the patriarch Jacob, "All these things are against 
me." But they murmered not — they trusted in God, and took courage. 

In conclusion, may the memory of our red brethren who at Gnaden- 
huetten sealed their faith with blood, ever remain; and may their pious 
confession of the Saviour in suffering, their meek endurance, and tri- 
umphant Christian death, bear testimony to the Truth as it is in Jesus, as 
long as the memory of the atrocious deed shall last. 





|HE INDIANS have a custom very much in conformity 
with the Jewish law, and which is mentionnd three or four 
different places in the Bible, and which, although not 
always followed by the Indians, yet it was followed by 
those on the Missouri who strictly regarded their ancient 
customs. It was that of marrying the widow of a deceased 
brother. — Tongue of Time, page 173. 
During the menstrual period the Indian woman lives as secluded as if 
they were infected with plague or small pox. The place she inhabits, her 
food, utensils, and even fire to light a pipe with, no one else would resort 
to or use for fear of some misfortune. A similarity to the Jewish cus- 
toms may here again be traced. — Tongue of Time, page 175. 

The Indians bury some of their war and other valuable implements 
with their dead, in the same manner spoken of in Scripture (see Ezekiel 
XXXII — 27,) where it is said they laid their swords under their heads. 

The writer of the above work repudiates the idea that the North 
American Indian is descended of the Ten Tribes of Israel, and gives 
as one reason that the Indians know nothing about the use of salt. This 
statement is so absurd that any person acquainted with Indian life, would 
condemn. An old acquaintance of the writer, when in the Canawway 
valley in West Virginia, said: "That the Indians, before leaving that 
region, had endeavored to cover up the salt springs to prevent the pale 
faces from utilizing the same." 






LIE Mexican pyramids (1838) of Teotchuacan were visited 
by Lieutenant Glennie, R. N. recently, and his communi- 
cation respecting them, was read before the London Geo- 
graphical Society. The village of Teotchuacan is elevated 
seven thousand four hundred and nine-two feet above the 
level of the sea. Its latitude North 19 degrees, 43 minutes, 
and longitude West 98 degrees, 51 minutes. It is about a 
mile and a half from the ocean. The largest of these pyramids is seven 
hundred and twenty-seven feet square at its base and two hundred and 
twenty-one feet in height. It stands due north and south, i. e., having 
two of its sides parallel to the meridian. About three hundred and fifty 
feet from the base of this ancient structure there is a rampart which after 
the long lapse of ages which have passed since it was erected is still 
thirty feet in height. On the north side of the rampart are the remains 
of a flight of steps. From these steps there is a road leading in a north- 
erly direction, and they are covered with a white cement. The remains 
of steps were also found on the pyramids which were also covered with the 
same sort of white cement as were also the broad traces which the Baron 
Humbodt called stages. But the number of small pyramids surrounding 
the large one was estimated by Mr. Glennie at two hundred and upwards, 
and makes this spot the city of pyramids. The Indians call the two 
largest pyramids the sun and moon, and the small ones the stars. The 
small pyramids vary in their dimensions but they are all built ot the same 
material, which is volcanic stone and plaster of clay from the adjacent 



304 



PYRAMIDS. 



soil, and they are all coated with cement. The ground between the bases 
of these pyramids appears to have been used as streets by the antediluvian 
dwellers. And what places the wealth and luxury of the times in a most 
striking light, the streets themselves were covered or paved with cement. 
One of the smaller pyramids was covered with a kind of broken pottery, 
which was ornamented with curious figures and devices. In the neigh- 
borhood of these edifices, a great number of small figures were found, 
such as heads, arms, legs, &c, moulded out of clay and hardened by fire. — 
Tongue of Time, page 150. 

This continent and a great part of its inhabitants were in the state of 
the eastern continent during the dark ages seems as probable as that the 
Egyptians, Grecians and Romans all deteriorated from their ancient splen- 
dor. The remains of antiquity of a period immensely past are annually 
developing themselves in the New World, and should any method be 
found of decyphering the meaning of its hyeroglyphics, of which we do 
not despair, we may yet discover who were its ancient inhabitants. 

THE PYRAMIDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 

The "Conquest of Mexico," published by Robert A.Wilson, page 183, 
has the following, under the head "Pyramids:" 

"The great pyramid of Copan is greater in dimensions than the great 
pyramid of Egypt, though truncated. On the left side of the passage is a 
pyramidal structure, with steps six feet high and nine feet broad, like the 
sides of one of the pyramids of Saccara, 122 feet high on the slope. The 
top has fallen and has two immense Ceba trees growing out of it." 

Quoting from Norman's Yucatan, the author says that the explorer 
in writing to a friend in New York, (1843,) while wandering amidst the 
ruins of a Central American city, wrote: "For five days did I wander up 
and down among these crumbling monuments of a city, which I hazard 
little in saying, have been one of the largest the world has ever seen. 
Evidently the city of Chichen was an antiquity when the foundation of 
the Pantheon at Athens and the Claoca Maxima were laid." 

The same author, in describing the ruins of Palenque, as described by 
Del Rio, (London, 1822,) are said to be 75 miles in circumference; length 
32 miles; breadth 12. About equal to Thebes in Egypt — full of monu- 
ments, statues and inscriptions. 



« 



t PYRAMIDS. 



305 



CALIFORNIA PYRAMIDS. 

Near San Diego, California, and within a day's march of the Pacific 
ocean, at the head of the Gulf of California, ancient ruins have been dis- 
covered, which will interest the antiquary as much, perhaps, as the 
discovery of gold has thousands of others. Portions of temples, dwell- 
ings, lofty stone pyramids, (seven of these within a mile square,) and 
massive granite rings or circular walls, round venerable trees, columns 
and blocks of hieroglyphics, all speak of some ancient race of men, now 
forever gone, their history actually unknown to any,pf the existing fami- 
lies of mankind. In some points these ruins resemble the recently dis- 
covered cities of Palenque, near the Atlantic, or Mexican Gulf coast; in 
others, the ruins of ancient Egypt; again in others, the monuments of 
Phoenicia, and yet in many features they differ from all that have been 
referred to. It is said the discoverers deem them to .be antediluvian*. 
The region of the ruins is called by the Indians the "Valley of Mystery." 
— Sears' History of the United States, page 621. 




^= a %^% ss =^ 

MAN, in preparing a piece of rock for a mill-stone, in the 
town of Salem, Ohio, after removing, three inches of its 
solid surface, came to holes which had been made in it by- 
art. But what was still more extraordinary, he came to two 
iron wedges, one of which had a thin strip of iron on each 
" side of it, after the method of splitting rocks at this day. 

Here was three inches of solid rock, formed over the wedges since they 
were driven there. That iron excluded from the air in a rock would 
remain for any length of time without becoming oxidated or destroyed by 
rust, we can easily conceive. But it is still wonderful that during the 
formation of three inches of strong matter over thete wedges that the 
action of air and water should not have destroyed their texture. — Tongue 
of Time, page 152. 

A palace still stands in New Spain, in our own native North America, 
the sight of which is worth a voyage across the Atlantic, and yet men- 
tioned by few. Unvisited by those who are crossing the Atlantic to take 
a view of curiosities there, of less interest, unvisited by our own coun- 
trymen who go to New Mexico. — Page 169. 

Pyramids are still standing in America, one of one hundred and eighty- 
eight feet and four inches in height and of one thousand four hundred 
and sixty-seven feet eleven inches base. This is at Cholula. The meas- 
ure w T e have given in English, and although not so high as the highest 
Egyptian Pyramid — that at Cheops — yet the Baron Humbodt remarks 
that the one at Cholulu has the longest base of any pyramid in the known 
world. — Page 147. 






;i 1 1 n 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ii 1 1 1 n i h i in n in i n 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 run i ii ii in 1 1 1 1 in 1 1 1 1 1 in i i n i in 1 1 





SI 1 1 1 1 1 1 III III 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 HI IJII M 1 1 1 HI 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 III 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 III II III E. 



IN PICKCT1Y COUNTY, OHIO 



J^IRCLEVILLE is built upon the site of an extensive earth- 
/ 1^ work, erected by that ancient and pre-historic race known 
as the Mound Builders. It consisted of two parts, the 
larger and more important one being in the form of an 
J jj^ exact circle, sixty-nine rods in diameter; the other an 
exact square, fifty-five rods on each side. The circle or inclosure was 
surrounded by double embankments or walls, with a deep ditch between 
them. Just how high these walls were is not of course known, for when 
first discovered by white men they had for centuries been worn down 
by the great leveling process of nature. But when first known they 
were twenty feet high on an average, from the bottom of the ditch. 

In the early days this ditch between the walls in times of rain would 
be filled with water, and it is within the memory of men now living of 
their having skated around the town on the ice thereon formed. In the 
center of the circular work stood a mound of considerable size, with a 
large semi-circular pavement extending half way around it on the eastern 
side. The single wall inclosing the square had eight openings, one at 
each corner, and one at the middle point on each side, that one of the 
western side leading into the circle. 

Immediately outside of the circle there was an immense mound that 
afforded excellent coasting for the boys up to within a little more than 
twenty years ago, when it was raised to the ground for a site for St. 
Joseph's Catholic Church. It was composed largely of gravel, and 
afforded material for macadamizing the streets. It was known as Mount 
Gilbon. Near the center of the round fort was a tumulus of earth about 
ten feet high and several rods in diameter at its base. On its eastern side, 



308 



PICKAWAY COUNTY WORKS. 



and extending six rods from it, was a circular pavement, composed of 
pebbles such as are now found in the bed of the Scioto, from whence they 
probably came. The summit of the tumulus was nearly thirty feet in 
diameter, and there was a raised way to it leading from the east. The 
summit was level. The earth composing this mound was entirely 
removed several years since. In the removal of the earth composing 
these mounds and in leveling down the walls of the circle from time to 
time, large quantities of human bones have been found, stone axes and 
knives, several polished stones and ornaments with holes through them, 
the handle of a small sword or large knife made of elk's horn, around the 
end of which, where the blade had been inserted, was a ferule of silver, 
bricks very well burnt, charcoal, wood ashes, and many other articles. 
All these have been of wonderful interest to the antiquary and the stu- 
dent of archaeology. Centuries have elapsed since these wonderful 
works were constructed. Great forest trees three and four feet in diam- 
ter had grown upon the top and the sides of the works, and smaller trees, 
with the dense growth of underbrush and vines, rendered them almost 
impenetrable on first discovery. When Circleville was first laid out a 
large open space was left in the center of the circle for a Court House 
and a street called Circle street was laid out on the ancient walls, or outer 
rim of the circle. Leading from this center to Circle street were four 
streets, running east, west, north and south, and between each of these an 
avenue. In the center of the open space within the circle the Court 
House was built in an octagonal form, but it has long since been torn 
down, and now, where it once stood, the two principal streets of the city 
cross each other. This was a very pretty plan of a city on paper, but 
inconvenient and unsatisfactory when tested, on account of the awkward 
shape of the lots and buildings erected thereon. It grew into such dis- 
favor that the original plot was afterward gradually abandoned. There 
is yet still standing a fine brick dwelling, the residence of the late Dr. 
Hawks, on one of these avenues known as Bastile avenue, and which 
seems to have been an aristocratic part of the ancient town. Such is 
something of the early history of Circleville as gleaned from Atwater's 
and Marfield's histories of the town, and from information derived from 
citizens^ 




- -^NLECTUREM^- 

1Y WENBEU FITOI 




THE SEEDS OF CIVILIZATION SCATTERED 
BROADCAST IN THE PAST. 

Modern Knowledge a Development of 
the Primal Hints of the Ancients. 



The Inimitable Power of the Old Master-Workmen. 

■ The Science and Art of the Precent Day Utilized. 

[JVew Tork Tribune.] 
IjlSpfENDELL PHILLIPS delivered his famous lecture upon "The 



HP Lost Arts," at Steinway Hall, Dec. 12th, 1880, for the benefit of 
the Purchard Institute. Notwithstanding the cold weather, the 
hall was well filled. The lecture, which has been repeated many 
scores of times, and has been regarded as the brilliant orator's most bril- 
liant production, but has hitherto escaped phonography, is here given. 




310 



THE LOST ARTS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: I am to talk to you to-night about ''The 
Lost Arts," — a lecture which has grown under my hand year after year, 
and which belongs to that first phase of the lyceum system before it un- 
dertook to meddle with political duties or dangerous and angry questions 
of ethics; when it was merely an academic institution, trying to win busy 
men back- to books, teaching a little science or repeating some tale of for- 
eign travel, or painting some great representative character, the cymbol 
of his age. I think I can claim a purpose beyond a moment's amuse- 
ment in this glance at early civilization. 

I, perhaps, might venture to claim that it was a medicine for what is 
the most objectionable feature of our national character, and that is self- 
conceit — an undue appreciation of ourselves, an exaggerated estimate of 
our achievements, of our inventions, of our contributions to popular com- 
fort, and of our place, in fact, in the great procession of the ages. We 
seem to imagine that whether knowledge will die with us or not, it cer- 
tainly began with us. We have a pitying estimate, a tender pity for the 
narrowness, ignorance, and darkness of the bygone ages. We seem to 
ourselves not only to monopolize, but to have begun the era of light. In 
other words, we are running over with a Fourth day of July spirit of self- 
content. I am often reminded of the German whom the English poet 
Coleridge met at Frankfort. He always took off his hat with profound 
respect when he ventured to speak of himself. It seems to me the Amer- 
ican people might be painted in the chronic attitude of taking off its hat 
to itself, and therefore it can be no waste of time with an audience in 
such a mood to take their eyes for a moment from the present civilization 
and guide them back to that earliest possible era that history describes 
for us, if it were only for the purpose of asking whether we boast on the 
right line. I might despair of curing us of the habit of boasting, but I 
might direct it better! 

pliny's sailors and a prairie camp fire. 

Well, I might have been somewhat criticised, year after year, for this 
endeavor to open up the claims of old times. I have been charged with 
repeating useless fables with no foundation. To-day, X take the mere 
subject of glass. This material, Pliny says, was discovered by accident; 
some sailors, landing on the eastern coast of Spain, took their cooking 



THE LOST ARTS. 



311 



utensils and supported them on the sand by the stones that they found in 
the neighborhood; they kindled their fire, cooked the fish, finished the 
meal, and removed the apparatus, and glass was found to have resulted 
from the niter and sea-sand, vitrified by the heat. Well, I have been a 
dozen times criticised by a number of wise men, in newspapers, who 
have said that this was a very idle tale, fhat there was never sufficient 
heat in a few bundles of sticks to produce vitrification — glass making. I 
happened, two years ago, to meet on the prairies of Missouri Prof. Shep- 
herd, who started from Yale College, and, like a genuine Yankee, brings 
up anywhere where there is anything to do. I happened to mention this 
criticism to him. "Well," says he, "a little practical life would have freed 
men from that doubt." Said he: "We stopped last year in Mexico to 
cook some venison. We got down from our saddles and put the cooking 
apparatus on stones we found there, made our fire with the wood we got 
there, resembling ebony, and when we removed the apparatus there was 
pure silver gotten out of the embers by the intense heat of that almost 
iron wood. Now," said he, "that heat was greater than any necessary 
to vitrify the materials of glass." Why not suppose that Pliny's sailors 
had lighted on some exceedingly hard wood. May it not be as possible 
as in this case? 

So, ladies and gentlemen, with a growing habit of distrust of a large 
share of this modern and exceedingly scientific criticism of ancient rec- 
ords, I think we have been betraying our own ignorance, and that fre- 
quently, when the statement does not look on the face of it to be exactly 
accurate, a little investigation below the surface will show that it rests on 
a real truth. Take, for instance, the English proverb, which was often 
quoted in my college days. We used to think how little logic the com- 
mon people had, and when we wanted to illustrate this in the school 
• room — it was what was called a "non sequitur;" the effect did not come 
from the cause named — we always quoted the English proverb: 'Tenter- 
den steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands." We said: "How ignorant 
a population!" But when we went deeper into the history we found 
that the proverb was not meant for logic, but was meant for sarcasm. 
One of the bishops had £50,000 given him to build a breakwater to save 
the Goodwin Sands from the advancing sea, but the good bishop — being 



312 THE LOST ARTS. 

one of the kind of bishops which Mr. Froude describes in his lectin e 
that the world would be better if Providence would remove them from 
it — instead of building the breakwater to keep out the sea, simply built a 
steeple; and this proverb was sarcastic and not logical, that "Tenterden 
steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands." When you contemplate 
the motive, there was the closest and the best welded logic in the pro- 
verb. So I think a large share of our criticism of old legends and old 
statements will be found in the end to be the ignorance that overleaps its 
own saddle and falls on the other side. 

MASTER ARTISTS INIMITABLE. 

Well, my first illustration ought to be this material glass; but, before I 
proceed to talk of these Lost Arts, I ought in fairness to make an excep- 
tion, and it is the conception and conceit which lies here. Over a very 
large section of literature there is a singular contradiction to this swelling 
conceit that there are certain lines in which the moderns are ill satisfied 
with themselves and contented to acknowledge that they ought fairly to 
sit down at the feet ot their predecessors. Take poetry, painting, sculp- 
ture, architecture, the drama, and almost everything in works of any 
form that relates to beauty; with regard to that whole sweep, the modern 
world gilds it with its admiration of the beautiful. Take the very phrases 
that we use. The artist says he wishes to go to Rome. "For what?" 
"To study the masters." Well, all the masters have been in their graves 
several hundred years. We are all pupils. You tell the poet, "Sir, that 
line of yours would remind one of Homer," and he is crazy. Stand in 
front of a painting, in the hearing of the artist, and compare its colorings 
to that of Titian or Raphael, and he remembers you forever. I remember 
once standing in front of a bit of marble carved by Powers, a Vermonter, 
who had a matchless, instinctive love of &rt and perception of beauty. 
I said to an Italian standing with me: Well, now, that seems to me to 
be perfection." The answer was: "To be perfection," shrugging his 
shoulders, "why, Sir, that reminds you of Phidias;" as if to remind you 
ot the Greek was a greater compliment than to be perfection. 

ALL MEN BORROWERS. 

Well, now the very choice of phrases betrays a confession of infer- 
iority, and you see it again creeps out in the amount we borrow. Take 



THE LOST ARTS. 



313 



the whole range of imaginative literature and we are all wholesale bor- 
rowers. In every matter that relates to invention — to use, or beauty, or 
form — we are borrowers. 

You may glance around the furniture of the palaces in Europe, and 
you may gather all thes^e utensils of art or use, and when you have fixed 
the shape and forms in your mind, I will take you into the Museum of 
Naples, which gathers all remains of the domestic life of the Romans, 
and you shall not find a single one of these modern forms of art or beauty 
or use, that w r as not anticipated there. We have hardly added one sin- 
gle line or sweep of beauty to the antique. 

Take the stories of Shakespeare, who has, perhaps, written his forty 
odd plays. Some are historical. The rest, two-thirds of them, he did 
not stop to invent, but he found them. These he clutched, ready made 
to his hand, from the Italian novelists, w r ho had taken them before from 
the East. Cinderella and her slipper is older than all history, like half a 
dozen other baby legends. The annals of the world 'do not go back far 
enough to tell us from where they first came. 

All the boys' plays, like everything that amuses the child in the open 
.air, are Asiatic. Rawlinson will show that they came somewhere from 
the banks of the Ganges or the suburbs of Damascus. Bulwer borrowed 
the incidents of his Roman stories from legends of a thousand years 
before. Indeed, Dunlop, who has grouped the history of the novels of 
all Europe into one essay, says that in the nations of modern Europe there 
have been 250 or 300 distinct stories. He says at least 200 of these may 
be traced before Christianity, to the other side of the Black Sea. If this 
were my topic, which it is not, I might tell you that even our newspaper 
jokes are enjoying a very respectable old age. Take Maria Edgew r orth's 
essay on Irish bulls and the laughable mistakes of the Irish. Even the 
tale which either Maria Edgew r orth or her father thonght the best is that 
famous story of a man writing a letter as follows: "My Dear Friend: 
I would write you in detail, more minutely, if there was not an impudent 
fellow looking over my shoulder reading every word." ("'No, you lie — 
I've not read a word you have written!") This is an Irish bull, still it is 
,a very old one. It is only 250 years older than the New Testament. 
Horace Walpole dissented from Richard Lovell Edgeworth and the other 



314 



THE LOST ARTS. 



Irish bull was the best — of the man who said: "I would have been a 
very handsome man, but they changed me in the cradle." That comes, 
from Don Quixote, and is Spanish, but Cervantes borrowed it from the 
Greek in the' fourth century, and the Greek stole it from the Egyptian 
hundreds of years back. 

GREEK JOKES IN THEIR DOTAGE. 

There is one story which it is said Washington has related of a man 
who went into an inn and asked for a glass of drink from the landlord, 
who pushed forward a wine-glass about half the usual size — the tea-cups 
also in that day were not more than half the present size. The landlord 
said, "That glass out of which you are drinking is 40 years old." "Well," 
said the thirsty traveler, contemplating its diminutive proportions, "I 
think it is the smallest thing of its age I ever saw." That story as told is 
given as a story of Athens 375 years before Christ was born. Why! all 
these Irish bulls are Greek — every one of them. Take the Irishman who 
carried around a brick as the specimen of the house he had to sell; take- 
the Irishman who shut his eyes and looked into the glass to 
see how he would look when he was dead; take the Irishman 
that bought a crow, alleging the crows were reported to live 200 
years, and he meant to set out and try it. Take the Irishman who met a 
friend who said to him, "Why, Sir, I heard you were dead." "Well,"' 
says the man, "I suppose you see I'm not." "Oh! no," says he, "I would 
believe the man who told me a good deal quicker than I would you."' 
Well! those are all Greek. A score or more of them, of the parallel 
character, come from Athens. 

Our old Boston patriots felt that tarring and feathering a Tory was a 
genuine patent Yankee fire-brand — Yankeeism. They little imagined 
that when Richard Coeur.de Leon set out on one of his Crusades, among 
the orders he issued to his camp of soldiers was that any one who robbed 
a hen-roost should be tarred and feathered. Many a man who lived in 
Connecticut has repeated the story of taking children to the limits of the 
town and giving them a sound thrashing to enforce their memory of the 
spot. But the Burgundians in France, in a law now 1,100 years old, 
attributed valor to the east of France because it had a law that the chil- 
dren should be taken to the limits of the district, and there soundly whip- 



THE LOST ARTS. 



H15 



ped, in order that they might forever remember where the limits came. 
So we have very few new things in that line. But I said I would take 
the subject, for instance, of this very material — very substance — glass. It 
is the very best expression of man's self-conceit. 

TEACHINGS FROM GLASS. 

I had heard that nothing had been observed in ancient times which 
could be called by the name of glass; that there had been merely attempts 
to imitate it. I thought they had proved the proposition; they certainly 
had elaborated it. In Pompeii, a dozen miles south of Naples, which 
was- covered with ashes by Vesuvius 1800 years ago, they broke into a 
room full of glass; there was ground-glass, window-glass, cut-glass, and 
colored glass of every variety. It was undoubtedly a glass-maker's fac- 
tory. So the lie and the refutation came face to face. It was like a 
pamphlet printed in London, in 1836, by Dr. Lardner, which proved that 
a steamboat could not cross the ocean, and the book came to this country 
in the first steamboat that came across the Atlantic. 

The chemistry of the most ancient period had reached a point which 
we have never even approached and which we in vain struggle to reach 
to-day. Indeed, the whole management of the effect of light on glass is 
still a matter of profound study. The first two stories which I have to 
offer you are simple stories from history. 

The first is from the letters of the Catholic priests who broke into 

China, which were published in France just 200 years ago. They were 

shown a glass, transparent and colorless, which was filled with a liquor 

made bv the Chinese that was shown to the observers and appeared to 

w 

be colorless like water. This liquor was poured into the glass, and then, 
looking through it, it seemed to be filled with fishes. They turned this 
out and repeated the experiment, and again it was filled with fish. The 
Chinese confessed that they did not make them; that they were the plun- 
der of some foreign conquest. This is not a singular thing in Chinese 
history, for in some of their scientific discoveries we have found evidence 
that they did not make them but stole them. 

The second story, of half a dozen, certainly five, relates to the age of 
Tiberius, the time of St. Paul, and tells of a Roman who had been ban- 
ished and who returned to Rome, bringing a wonderful cup. This cup 



.V 



316 



THE LOST ARTS. 



he dashed upon the marble pavement, and it was crushed, not broken by 
the fall. It was dented some, and with a hammer he easily brought it 
into shape again. It was brilliant, transparent, but not brittle. I had a 
wine glass when I made this talk in New Haven, and among the audi- 
ence was the owner, Prof. Silliman. He was kind enough to come to 
the platform when I had ended, and say that he was familiar with most 
of my facts; but speaking of malleable glass, he had this to say — that it 
was nearly a natural impossibility, and that no amount of evidence which 
could be brought would make him credit it. Well, the Romans got their 
chemistry from the Arabians; they brought it into Spain eight centuries 
ago. and in their books of that age they claim that they got from the 
Arabian malleable glass. There is a kind of glass spoken of there that, if 
supported by one end, by its bwn weight in twenty hours would dwindle 
down to a fine line, and that you could curve it around your wrist. Von 
Beust — the Chancellor of Austria — has ordered secrecy in Hungary in 
regard to a recently discovered process by which glass can be used 
exacty like wool, and manufactured into cloth. 

These are a few records. When you go to Rome they will show you 
a bit of glass like the solid rim of this tumbler — a transparent glass a solid 
thing, which they lift up so as to show you that there is nothing con- 
cealed, but in the center of the glass is a drop of colored glass, perhaps 
as large as a pea, mottled with the shifting colored hues of the neck, and 
which even a miniature pencil could not do more perfectly. It is mani- 
fest that this drop of liquid glass must have been poured, because there 
is*no joint. This must have been done by a greater heat than the anneal- 
ing process, because that process shows breaks. 

The imitations of gems has deceived not only the" lay people, but the 
connoisseurs. Some of these imitations in later years have been discovered. 
The celebrated vase of the Genoa Cathedral was considered a solid eme- 
rald. The Roman Catholic legend of it was that it was one of the treas- 
ures that the Queen of Sheba gave to Solomon, and that it was the ident- 
ical cup of which the Saviour drank at the Last Supper. Columbus must 
have admired it. It was venerable in his day; it was death for anybody 
to touch it but a Catholic priest. And when Napoleon besieged Genoa — 
I mean the great Napoleon, not the present little fellow — it was offered 



THE LOST ARTS. 



317 



by the Jews to loan the Senate $3,000,000 on that single article as security. 
Napoleon took it and carried it to France, and gave it to the Institute. 
Somewhat reluctantly the scholars said: "It is not a stone; we hardly 
know what it is." 

EXCELLENCE PER RE. 

Cicero said that he had seen the entire Iliad, which is a poem as large 
as the New Testament, written on skin so that it could be rolled up in 
the compass of a nut shell. Now, this is imperceptible to the ordinary 
•eye. You have seen the Declaration of Independence in the compass of 
a quarter of a dollar, written with glasses. I have to-day a paper at home 
as long as half of my hand, on which was photographed the whole con- 
tents of a London newspaper. It was put under a dove's wing and sent 
into Paris, where they enlarged it and read the news. This copy of the 
Iliad must have been made by some such process. 

In the Roman theater — the Coliseum, which could seat 100,000 people — 
the Emperor's box, raised to the highest tier, bore about the same pro- 
portion to the space as this stand does to this hall, and to look down to 
the center of a six acre lot, was to look a considerable distance. (Con- 
siderable, by the way, is not a Yankee word. Lord Chesterfield uses it 
in his letters to his son, so it has a good English origin.) Pliny says that 
Nero, the tyrant, had a ring with a gem in it which he looked through 
and watched the play of the gladiators — men who killed each other to 
amuse the people — more clearly than with the naked eye. So Nero had 
an opera-glass. 

So Mauritius, the Sicillian, stood on the promontory of his island, and 
could sweep over the entire sea to the coast of Africa with his nauscopite, 
which is a word derived from two Greek words, meaning to see a ship, 
evidently Mauritius, who was a pirate, had a marine telescope. 

You may visit Dr. Abbott's Museum, where you will see the ring of 
Cheops. Bunsen puts him 500 years before Christ. The signet of the 
ring is about the size of a quarter of a dollar, and the engraving is invisi- 
ble without the aid of glasses. No man was ever shown into the cabi- 
nets of gems in Italy without being furnished with a microscope to look 
at them. It would be idle for him to look at them without one. He 
couldn't appreciate the delicate lines and the expression of the faces. If 



318 



THE LOST ARTS. 



you go to Parma they will show you a gem once worn on the finger of 
Michael Angelo, of which the engraving is 2,000 years old, on which 
there are the figures of seven women. You must have the aid of a glass 
in order to distinguish the forms at all. I have a friend who has a ring, 
perhaps three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and on it is the naked fig- 
ure of the god Hercules. By the aid of glasses you can distinguish the 
interlacing muscles, and count every separate hair on the eyebrows. 
Layard says he would be unable to read the engravings on Ninevah 
without strong spectacles, they are so extremely small. Rawlinson 
brought home a stone about 20 inches long and ten wide, containing an 
entire treatise on mathematics. It would be perfectly illegible without 
glasses. Now, if we are unable to read it without the aid of glasses, you 
may suppose the man who engraved it had pretty strong spectacles. So, 
the microscope, instead of dating from our time, finds its brothers in the 
Books of Moses — and these are infant brothers. 

THE OLD DYES. 

So if you take colors. Color is, we say, an ornament. We dye our 
dresses and ornament our furniture. It is an ornament to gratify the eye; 
but the Egyptians impressed it into a new service. For then it was a 
method of recording history. Some parts of their history was written; 
but when they wanted to elaborate history they painted it. Their colors 
are immortal, else we could not know of it. We find upon the stucco of 
their walls their kings holding court, their armies marching out their 
craftsmen in the ship yard with the ships floating in the dock, and in fact 
we trace all their rites and customs painted in undying colors. The 
French who went to Egypt with Napoleon said that all the colors were 
perfect except the greenish white, which is the hardest for us. They had 
no difficulty with the Tyrian purple. The burned city of Pompeii was a 
city of stucco. All the houses are stucco outside, and it is stained with 
Tyrian purple — the royal color of antiquity. 

But you never can rely on the name of a color after a thousand years. 
So, the Tyrian purple is almost a red — about the color of these curtains. 
This is a city of all red. It had been buried 1,700 years, and if you take 
a shovel now and clear away the ashes this color flames upon you, a great 
deal richer than anything we can produce. You can go down into the 



TIII« LOST ARTS. 



:n<> 



narrow vault which Nero built him as a retreat from the great heat, and 
you will find the walls painted all over with fanciful designs in arabesque, 
which have been beneath the earth 1,500 years; but when the peasants 
light it up with their torches, the colors flash out before you as fresh as 
they were in the days of St. Paul. Your fellow citizen, Mr. Page, spent 
twelve years in Venice, studying Titian's method of mixing his colors, 
and he thinks he has got it. Yet come down from Titian, whose colors 
are wonderfully and perfectly fresh, to Sir John Reynolds, and although 
his colors are not yet a hundred years old, they are fading; the colors on 
his lips are dying out, and the cheeks are losing their tints. He did not 
know how to mix well. All this mastery of color is as yet unequaled. If 
you should go with that most delightful of all lecturers, Prof. Tyndall, 
he would show you in the spectrum the vanishing rays of violet, and 
prove to you that beyond their limit there are rays still more delicate and 
to you invisible, but which he, by chemical paper, will make visible; and 
will tell you that probably, though you see three or four inches more than 
300 years ago your predecessors did, yet 300 years after our successors 
will surpass our limit. The French have a theory that there is a certain 
delicate shade of blue that Europeans can not see. In one of his lectures 
to his students, Ruskin opened his Catholic mass book and said: "Gen- 
tlemen, we are the best chemists in the world. No Englishman ever 
could doubt that. But we cannot make such a scarlet as that, and even 
if we could it would not last for twenty years. Yet this is 300 years old!" 
The Frenchman says: "I am the best dyer in Europe; nobody can equal 
me, and nobody can surpass Lyons." Yet in Cashmere, where the girls 
make shawls worth $30,000, they will show him 300 distinct colors, which 
he not only cannot make, but cannot even distinguish. When I was in 
Rome, if a lady wished to wear half a dozen colors at a masquerade, and 
have them all in harmony, she would go to the Jews, for the Oriental eye 
is better than even those of France or Italy, of which we think so highly. 

ANCIENT MASTER' ARTISANS. 

Taking the metals, the Bible in its first chapters shows that man first 
conquered metals there in Asia, and on that spot to-day he can work 
more, wonders with those metals than we can. 

One of the surprises that the European artists received when the 
English plundered the Summer palace of the King of China,was the curi- 



320 



THE LOST ARTS. 



ously wrought metal vessels of every kind, far exceeding all the boasted 
skill of the workmen of Europe. 

Mr. Colton, of The Boston Journal, the first week he landed in Asia, 
found that his chronometer was out of order from the steel of the works 
having become rusted. The London Medical and Surgical Journal 
- advises surgeons not to venture to carry any lancets to Calcutta, to have 
them gilded, because English steel could not bear the atmosphere of India. 
Yet the Damascus blades of the Crusades were not gilded, and they are 
as perfect as they were eight centuries ago. There was one at the Lon- 
don Exhibition, the point of which could be made to touch the hilt, and 
which could be put into a scabbard like a corkscrew, and bent everyway 
without breaking, like an American politician. Now, the wonder of this 
is, that perfect steel is a marvel of science. If a London chronometer- 
maker wants the very best steel to use, in his chronometer, he does not 
send to Sheffield, the center of all science, but to the Punjaub, the empire 
of the seven rivers, where there is no science at all. The first needle ever 
made in England was made in the time of Henry the VTIIth, and made 
by a negro, and when he died the art died with him. Some of the first 
travelers in Africa stated that they found a tribe in the interior who gave 
them better razors than they had, the irrepressible negro coming up in 
science as in politics. The best steel is the greatest triumph of metal- 
lurgy; and metallurgy is the glory of chemistry. 

The poets have celebrated the perfection of the oriental steel, and it is 
recognized as the finest by Moore, Byron, Scott, Southey, and many 
others. I have even heard a young advocate of the lost arts find an argu- 
ment in Byron's "Sennacherib" from the fact that the mail of the war- 
riors in that one short night had rusted before the trembling Jews stole 
out in the morning to behold the terrible work of the Lord. Scott, in 
his "Tales of the Crusaders" — for Sir Walter was curious in his love 
for the lost arts — describes a meeting between Richard Coeur de Lion and 
Saladin. Saladin asks Richard to show him the wonderful strength for 
which he is famous, and the Norman monarch responds by severing a bar 
of iron which lies in his tent. Saladin says, "I can not do that," but he 
takes an eider-down pillow from the sofa, and, drawing his keen blade 
;across it, it falls in two pieces. Richard says: "This is the black art; 



TIIK LOST ARTS. 



321 



it is magic; it is the devil; you can not cut that which has no resistance;" 
and Saladin, to show him that such is not the case, takes a scarf from his 
shoulders, which is so light that it almost floats in the air, and tossing it up, 
severs it before it can descend. George Thompson told me he saw a 
man in Calcutta throw a handful of floss silk into the air, and a Hindoo 
sever it into pieces with his saber. We can produce nothing like this. 
Egypt's mechanical marvels. 
Taking their employment of the mechanical forces, and their move- 
ment of large masses from the earth, we know that the Egyptians had 
the five, seven, or three mechanical powers, but we can not account for 
the multiplication and increase necessary to perform the wonders they 
accomplished. 

In Boston, lately, we have moved the Pelham Hotel, weighing 50,000 
tons, 14 feet, and are very proud of it, and since then we have moved a 
whole block of houses 23 feet, and I have no doubt we will write a book 
about it; but there is a book telling how Domenico Fontana of the six- 
teenth century set up the Egyptian obelisk at Rome on end in the Papacy 
of Sixtus V. Wonderful! Yet the Egyptians quarried that stone and 
carried it 150 miles, and the Romans brought it 750 miles, and never said 
a word about it. Mr. Batterson, of Hartford, walking with Brunei, the 
architect of the Thames tunnel, in Egypt, asked him what he thought 
of the mechanical power of the Egyptians, and he said, there is Pompey's 
Pillar, it is 100 feet high, and the capital weighs 2,000 pounds. It is 
something of a feat to hang 2,000 pounds at that height in the air, and the 
few men that can do it would better discuss Egyptian mechanics. 

Take canals. The Suez Canal absorbs half its receipts in cleaning out 
the sand which fills it continually, and it is not yet known whether it is a 
pecuniary success. The ancients built a canal at right angles to ours, 
because they knew it would not fill up if built in that direction, and they 
knew such an one as ours would. There were magnificent canals in the 
lands of the Jews, with perfectly arranged gates and sluices. We have 
only just begun to understand ventilation properly for our houses; yet 
late experiments at the Pyramids in Egypt show that those Egyptian 
tombs were ventilated in the most perfect and scientific manner. 

Again, cement is modern, for the ancients dressed and joined their 
stones so closely that, in buildings thousands of years old, the thin blade 



S22 



THE LOST ARTS. 



of a pen-knife cannot be forced between them. The railroad dates back 
to Egypt. Arago has claimed that they |aad a knowledge of steam. A 
painting has been discovered of a ship full of machinery, and a French 
engineer said that the arrangement of this machinery could only be 
accounted for by supposing the motive power to have been steam. Bra- 
mah acknowledges that he took the idea of his celebrated lock from an 
ancient Egyptian pattern. De Tocqueville says there was no social ques- 
tion that was not discussed to rags in Egypt. 

OLD HINTS OF NEW THINGS. 

"Well," say you, "Franklin invented the lightning rod." I have no 
doubt he did; but years before his invention, and before muskets were in- 
vented"^ the old soldier on guard on the towers used Franklin's invention 
to keep guard with ; and if a spark passed between them and the spear 
head they ran and bore the warning of the state and condition of affairs. 
After that you will admit that Benjamin Franklin was not the only one 
that knew of the presence of electricity, and the advantages derived from 
its use. Solomon's Temple, you will find, "was situated on an exposed 
point of the hill; the temple was so lofty that it was often in peril, and 
was guarded by a system exactly like that of Benjamin Franklin. 

"Well, I may tell you a little of ancient manufactures. The Dutchess 
of Burgundy took a necklace from the- neck of a mummy and wore it 
to a ball given at the Tuileries, and everybody said that they thought it 
was the newest thing there. A Hindoo princess came into court, and 
her father seeing her said: "Go home, you are not decently covered — 
go home;" and she said, "Father, I have seven suits on;" but the suits 
were of muslin, so thin that the king could see through them. A Roman 
poet says: "The girl was in the poetic dress of the country." I fancy 
the French would be rather astonished at this. Four hundred and fifty 
years ago the first spinning machine was introduced in Europe; I have 
evidence to show that it made its appearance 2,000 years before. 

Well, I tell you this fact to show that perhaps we don't invent just 
everything. Why did I think to grope m the ashes for this? Because 
all Egypt knew the secret, which was not the knowledge of the professor, 
the king,and the priest. Their knowledge won an historic privilege which 
separated them from and brought down the masses; and this chain was 



THE LOST ARTS. 



333 



broken when Cambyses came down from Persia, and by his genius and 
intellect opened the gates of knowledge, thundering across Egypt, draw- 
ing out civilization from royalty and priesthood. 

MODERN KNOWLEDGE UTILIZED. 

Such was the system which was established in Egypt of old. It was 
4.000 years before humanity took that subject to a proper consideration, 
and changed her character. Learning no longer hid in a convent or 
slumbered in the palace. No! she came out joining hands with the peo- 
ple, ministering and dealing with them. 

We have not an atrology in the stars serving only the kings and priests; 
we have an astrology serving all those around us. We have not a chem- 
istry hidden in underground cells, striving for wealth, striving to change 
evervthing into gold. No; we have a chemistry laboring with the far- 
mer, and digging gold out of the earth with the miner. Ah ! this is the 
nineteenth century, and of the hundreds of things we know, I can show 
you ninety-nine of them which have been anticipated, It is the liberty 
of intellect and a diffusion of knowledge that has caused this anticipa- 
tion. 

When Gibbon finished his History of Rome he said: "The hand will 
never go back upon the dial of time, when everything was hidden in fear 
in the dark ages." He made that boast as he stood at night in the ruins 
of the Corsani palace, looking out upon the places where the monks were 
chanting; that vision disappeared, and there arose in its stead the Temple 
of Jupiter, Could he look back upon the past he would see nations that 
went up in their strength, and down to graves with fire in one hand and 
iron in the other hand before Rome was peopled, which, in their strength, 
were crushed in subduing civilization. But is a very different principle 
that govern this land; it is the one which should govern every land; it is 
the one which this nation needs to practice this day. It is the human 
property, it is the divine will that any man has the right to know any- 
thing which he knows will be servicable to himself and to his fellow- 
man, and that will make art immortal if God means that it shall last. 



